


ballet shoes and ice skates

by nezumiprefersdanielleovershakespeare



Category: No. 6 (Anime & Manga), No. 6 - All Media Types, No. 6 - Asano Atsuko
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-27
Updated: 2017-07-20
Packaged: 2018-11-19 13:10:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 92,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11314074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nezumiprefersdanielleovershakespeare/pseuds/nezumiprefersdanielleovershakespeare
Summary: Shion is a world famous five-time gold medalist ice skater who just completed his eighth season of ice skating and is already training for his ninth. Nezumi is a ballet performer at a theater in Tokyo who has just been discovered by a film producer and promptly cast in his first feature film - a film that requires him to learn to ice skate. Nezumi's agent hires Shion to coach him, and Shion agrees, swept away by Nezumi's beauty and ignoring his lack of any actual coaching experience.Preview:“Have you been on the ice before?”Nezumi tightened the bows of his laces, stood up in a careful way. Shion looked up at him, the length of him. He was tall, long-limbed. He wore a baggy sweater with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows that fell loosely over the black leggings clinging to the length of his legs. The sweater was sky blue and said Cinderella on the front with pale pink letters. The back said CAST – NEZUMI.“No,” Nezumi said. He had a low voice, but it projected, as if he was always on stage, whispering for an audience. Shion found himself leaning forward with each word Nezumi spoke. He leaned forward at the silences between the words. He leaned forward with every breath he took and released.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey cool cats! Unlike the fics I've been posting to this account recently, this one is not an old fic I'm reposting, but a new one I'm writing currently. Hope you guys enjoy it, and as always, thanks for reading! :)

_“Absolute silence from the audience, the anticipation is tangible – Everyone at the edges of their seats to see what Japan’s four-time Grand Prix Final gold medalist will bring to the ice this time. Safe to say Shion’s gold in this year’s final is almost guaranteed. The music,_ You Make Me Strong _… Five quads planned in his program, the most of any skater in this year’s line-up. His quad Salchow is even part of a combination jump in his program’s second half. But first up, a quad loop – that leading step sequence, eased into a lift…outstanding! Nothing but perfection from Shion! Incredible!”_

**

As the tape fast forwarded, the figure skater rushed over the ice, his jumps four times faster than real time until Nezumi pressed Play.

            _“I don’t feel as if I’m being dramatic when I say this is probably the best figure skate program of all time. The audience is ecstatic, flowers raining on the ice. Shion must be so proud, a true phenomenon, without a doubt he’s broken yet another world record – five perfect quads, a truly amazing sight we’ve seen tonight, this is huge, this is record breaking, this is history being made.”_

            When the video paused again, it was on the figure skater’s smile, a breathless exhaustion creasing his features, pinking his cheeks. Nezumi leaned forward, examined the shine of sweat, the clumped strands of hair freed from the rest of his slicked back locks, whiter than the ice he skated on. The lips parted, a grin softening the features that had been focused for the entirety of the program.

            The figure skater – Shion – would win a gold medal. His fifth consecutive gold, his eighth consecutive Grand Prix medal overall. Like Nezumi, he was twenty-five. One of the older skaters, but an end to his career did not seem near.

            His eyes were redder than the roses thrown onto the ice. His eyelashes a startling white. Even frozen, there was something enchanting about the figure skater.

            Nezumi dropped his gaze back to the figure skater’s breathless smile for a few more seconds, then pressed Play again.

            _“Ladies and gentlemen, it is safe to say that you have just witnessed a perfect performance from the most incredible figure skater in the world – Shion!”_

*

“Shion!”

            Straightening up from his cantilever, Shion found Safu waving her hands by the edge of the rink. He weaved his fingers through his hair to keep them from blowing back into his eyes as he skated towards her.

            “You need a haircut. And you’re late,” Safu said, when Shion stopped inches from the edge of the rink.

            “Sorry, I got – ”

            “Distracted, which is why I came all the way here to collect you rather than wait for an hour at the diner. Come on.” Safu turned from him, beckoning over her shoulder with a curl of her fingers, and Shion hastily skated to the door of the rink to follow her.

            “I’m really sorry about that,” Shion insisted, catching up with his best friend, who wove an arm through his. “Please forgive me!”

            Safu laughed, bumped Shion’s shoulder with her own. “It’s only been three weeks since you left me at that diner on my own, I retain the right to be bitter for an entire month.”

            “That’s fair,” Shion conceded, as Safu steered them to the dressing rooms.

            “I stopped by the bakery to see your mother before I came here,” Safu said, in a nonchalant way that made Shion immediately suspicious.

            He didn’t say anything, as they’d reached the dressing room, and Shion pulled off his joggers to change into jeans. Halfway into his jeans, he peered up at Safu to find her leaning against the row of lockers across from his, eyebrows raised at him and arms crossed.

            “And when did you change your mind about this? Why didn’t you tell me?” Safu asked, as Shion had known she was going to.

            He straightened up to zip his jeans before sitting down on a bench to pull on his sneakers, glad to be distracted by tying the laces so he didn’t have to look at his friend when he replied.

            “I haven’t got time. I need to train.”

            “The last season just ended. New excuse.”

            “I’ll need an entirely new training regime if I’m going to incorporate a quad axel into my new program.”

            “Again, the season just ended. You have time to learn the impossible quad.”

            Shion pulled his laces tight and looked up, resting his elbows on his knees and again pushing his bangs from his eyes. “It’s not impossible.”

            “In that case, it won’t be difficult at all for you to master it, and therefore you have extra time on your hands,” Safu said, uncrossing her arms and lifting her chin, her grin too smug.

            Shion laughed, standing up. “Safu, it’s just not the right time.”

            “Your mother agrees with me,” Safu replied, as she led the way out the dressing room down the hall to the exit. It was Shion’s hometown rink, where he’d been skating since he could walk. It wasn’t infrequent for his mother to laugh as she told the story of how Shion’s first steps had not been on solid ground, but ice.

            “Of course she agrees with you,” Shion muttered, checking his phone to see with a cringe that he was indeed fifteen minutes late to his dinner with Safu. “She always does.”

            “You could use a break. All you do is skate.”

            Shion opened the door for Safu, followed her out into the sunlight that had him squinting, the sun always brightest right before it set. “I’d still be skating if I did this.”

            “You’d be teaching. There’s a difference. It wouldn’t be for the purpose of competition. It’d be for fun. Remember when you used to skate for fun?” Safu prodded Shion’s side gently with her elbow.

            “I still skate for fun. I find competing fun. It doesn’t have to be one or the other.”

            “He requested you specifically,” Safu insisted.

            “His agent did.”

            “So? This is the actor’s chance to break out of the theater scene and make it big in the film industry. Don’t you want to help him? I know you love helping people,” Safu said, smiling when Shion glanced at her.

            He took her hand, led her across the street after making sure no cars were passing.

            “You saw his headshots. He’s gorgeous. He doesn’t need help making it big in the film industry, his looks will easily carry him to the top. Besides, I’m not the only one who can help him. There are tons of figure skaters in Japan who could teach him. And logically, it should be a coach who trains him, I don’t know anything about teaching people how to skate.”

            Safu squeezed Shion’s hand lightly as they turned the corner of the block. “You taught me.”

            Shion sighed through a smile. “That was different.”

            “How?”

            “We were kids! And I wasn’t training for my next competition or trying to learn a new quad. And you weren’t about to star in a feature film about a figure skater’s star crossed love story with his arch nemesis on ice.”

            “The plot does sound interesting. If you helped him, I bet you could get us free tickets.”

            “A movie ticket is ten bucks. I’ll buy yours if you really want to see it,” Shion said, shaking his head as they reached the diner they’d been going to since they were in grade school. One of their many havens in their small rural town, and Shion felt a rush of warmth towards his best friend, towards the life they used to live before Shion got famous, towards the life Safu still allowed him to live between competitions, as if Shion was still the same boy she’d made dutiful flashcards with to study for their spelling tests, and years later, college entry exams, though of course, Shion had not ended up attending college.

            While Safu had filled out applications, Shion had entered his first senior division league, and he’d won each competition until landing a silver medal at the Grand Prix Final at seventeen, earning himself a fame that had only escalated in the eight years since.

            “The point isn’t the movie tickets,” Safu said, as they collapsed into a booth at the corner, glad to find their preferred table empty and waiting for them.

            Shion rested his elbows on the table and looked up at his best friend, who was pointing at him.

            “This will be good for you. A break in your routine. Since you started competing, it’s been all you’ve allowed yourself to focus on. I’ve always admired your committed nature to that which you are passionate about, but it’s not like you wouldn’t be figure skating. You’d just be doing something different for once in eight years.”

            “I’m not unhappy with my life, Safu. I don’t need change,” Shion sighed, reaching out to pick at the sugar packets beside him. “Besides, the agent’s request makes very little sense. Why pay so much money to hire me as a coach? Why not just hire an actual coach?”

            “For publicity, obviously, Shion. If the world’s number one figure skater trained the actor, it’d be incredible press for the film.”

            “I’m not the world’s number one figure skater,” Shion argued.

            “Oh? Then who is?” Safu asked, smiling around her question, and Shion was glad when a waitress came to their table, smiling cheerily at them and telling Shion to thank his mother again for the pies she’d delivered to the diner that morning.

            When she left with their orders, Safu resumed the topic that Shion had been hoping she’d drop.

            “Just give it a try. Don’t sign the contract if you don’t want to commit to it, but try at least one day of lessons. What’s the worst that could happen? You said so yourself, the actor is gorgeous if his headshots are to be believed, it can’t be that painful to have a day full of him.”

            Shion rolled his eyes and sipped the water the waitress had brought over. “My mom could train him,” he suggested. “She’s the best coach I’ve ever had.”

            “She’s the only coach you’ve ever had. And you know she looks forward to the off season where she can take a break from the ice. You can’t really suggest pulling her from the bakery.”

            Shion rested his elbow on the table and his hand on his palm. “I guess not. Can we change the subject? Tell me about the clinic. All we’ve done is talk about this actor since we got his agent’s offer in the mail.”

            “Because that’s more interesting than anything going on in my clinic. But fine, yes, we can change the topic, just one more thing,” Safu said, sliding her hand under the table, from where it reemerged holding two strips of pale orange paper. “Surprise!”

            “What is it?” Shion asked, reaching out for the strips, reading them twice before realizing they were tickets for The New National Theatre in Tokyo. “Aren’t these expensive?”

            “Nope. Your mother gave them to me, they were sent by the actor’s agent. Apparently, the agent had an idea that you might need some coaxing. We can drive into Tokyo tonight after we eat, sight see around the city in the morning, then attend his production in the evening, what do you think?”

            Shion eyed his friend’s exuberance warily. “Don’t you need to take off work?”

            “Already did.”

            “Safu!”

            “Come on, Shion. We haven’t done something together in so long.”

            “We’re doing something together right now,” Shion reminded, but he glanced back at the tickets. “It’s a ballet,” he read, surprised. “I didn’t know the actor did ballet.”

            “It’ll help for his figure skating, don’t you think? Please, will you come with me? And don’t say you can’t take a day off from training, because I know you can, don’t make me remind you that it’s only January.”

            Shion ran his finger across the side of his cup, catching dew on his fingertip that he wiped on his jeans before looking up at his best friend. He smiled at her hopeful eagerness. “All right, all right, I need to pack some stuff after we eat, and then we can go. My car or yours?”

            “Mine, of course, you’re a terrible driver,” Safu replied easily, not seeming at all surprised that Shion had agreed to her impromptu plan, but after twenty-five years of friendship, Safu must have known Shion would always end up going along with her schemes.

            After Shion’s grudging agreement, Safu allowed a change in topic, and the actor was not mentioned again as they feasted on blueberry pancakes, bacon, and eggs for dinner, settling into the worn seats of the booth that felt more comfortable to Shion than even the ice he loved to skate on.

*

It was the morning after Nezumi’s last production of _Swan Lake_ that he got a text from his agent.

            The figure skater had agreed to a week of preemptive training, completely out of contract and cost-free, before Nezumi and the figure skater could both decide if the official training should continue as written out in the contract for the agreed upon price and timespan the agent had listed.

            _I told him you agreed. Taking the train out to his hometown rink this afternoon. Pack your stuff. I’ll call around noon with details and have a car collect you at three._

            Nezumi didn’t bother replying to the text, seeing as apparently, he had little say in the matter entirely. Not that he had any inclination to disagree. He was surprised that the figure skater was even bothering to extend a week of his time to train him, amazed that his agent’s longshot plan had led to any fraction of fruition at all.

            Nezumi hauled himself out of bed, throwing his phone on the mattress and pushing his bangs from his eyes. He needed to pack, though it occurred to him, after he took a quick shower, made himself a slice of toast, and stood in front of his closet nibbling on the corners of it, that he had no idea what he was supposed to wear during his figure skating training.

            He gripped his toast loosely between his teeth, pulled his duffel from the top shelf of the closet, and threw random articles of clothing into it, thinking that rinks were probably cold and opting for sweats and sweaters, then remembering the sparkling skintight outfits Shion wore in the videos Nezumi’s agent had given him to watch, and threw in a few pairs of tights and leggings from the costumes of his previous ballets along with the sweats.

            By noon, Nezumi had packed and repacked his bag three times, and took a break to take the call from his agent, who briefed him on the schedule she and the figure skater had arranged for the next week.

            Ten-hour practice sessions daily, from nine in the morning to six at night, allowing for an hour lunch break.

            Nezumi was accustomed to longer days of practice for his ballets that often extended to late hours of the night, and didn’t protest.

            By five, Nezumi was in a train across from his agent, who rambled on until Nezumi dug his script out of his duffel and opened it to indicate to his agent that he had no desire for conversation. He did not actually read the script when his agent finally stopped talking, but flipped the pages in a lazy act, having already read through it twice.

            The working title was _Hearts of Ice._ Catchy enough, but Nezumi hoped it would be changed by the end of production. Nezumi had been cast by a film producer who’d come to one of his ballets and got it into his head that Nezumi would be perfect in a feature film, which Nezumi had never been a part of in his life.

            He preferred live shows. The endless toll of it, the constant labor, the back-stage crew flitting in and off the stage decked in black, invisible to the audience whose eyes followed only the spotlight and the thespians illuminated by it. There was the demand for perfection, no first, second, or third takes, no chances to redo a scene – just right then, that moment. It required precision, complete focus, and Nezumi thrived on it, living in the exact moment in which his audience watched him with bated breath.

            He could tell, watching the videos of the figure skater, that competitions were much the same as the theater. One mistake, and the illusion was shattered, the magic was gone. A second too late, a hesitation after the cue, and there was no longer magnificence.

            A film would be nothing like that. But Nezumi’s agent was insistent, and once Nezumi saw the figure on his paycheck he’d been offered even before his agent’s negotiation for more, he couldn’t rationalize refusing it.

            “Nezumi.”

            Nezumi glanced up from the script wearily, which he’d flipped to the end pages by then. He’d been contemplating taking a nap, and hoped his agent wasn’t about to go on another monologue.

            “We’re almost there, get ready.”

            Nezumi glanced out the window of the train, saw little in the darkness, and stooped down to pack his script, sitting back up to stretch while his agent typed something on her phone before pocketing it.

            “We’ll go to the hotel tonight and meet Shion in the morning. His mother works at a bakery and offered to treat us to an early breakfast before your training started in order to get acquainted.”

            “His mother? Thought she was his coach,” Nezumi said, tying his hair up and recalling the woman on the side of the rinks, beaming at her son in the videos he’d watched.

            Nezumi’s agent shrugged. “Guess she bakes in the off season.”

            The train slowed before stopping, and Nezumi stood up, followed his agent out the carriage and down the corridor until they were stepping off the train.

            His agent reached out and pulled Nezumi’s sleeve.

            “Nezumi.”

            “Kiyoko.” Nezumi freed his arm gently from his agent’s grip, and she allowed it.

            “Be nice tomorrow. Remember, Shion hasn’t yet agreed to train you, this week is a kind gesture on his part to meet you and see how you work together. So try to cooperate.”

            “I’m always nice,” Nezumi replied.

            “I didn’t score this opportunity for you to waste it.”

            “I’ll be nice, I’ll cooperate, I’ll flatter the mother, I’ll flirt with the figure skater. Happy?”

            “Don’t flirt with the figure skater.”

            “That might win him over,” Nezumi pointed out, his lips pulling up as his agent glared at him.

            “Please do not take my career as a joke.”

            “I would never.”

            “Keep in mind the paycheck you could get from this film if it gets the publicity of this guy as your coach and behave yourself.”

            “Yes, ma’am.”

            His agent shook her head, muttering something under her breath that sounded a lot like, _Nuisance,_ before hailing a cab, the door of which Nezumi opened for her with a grand gesture.

            “Save your manners for tomorrow,” she snapped in response, and Nezumi laughed, throwing their bags in the trunk before following her into the back seat, closing the door, and watching the night slip by out the window as the cab began to drive.

*

Shion woke early to head to the rink before he’d have to be at the bakery to meet the actor and his agent.

            He was just getting warmed up and setting himself up for a quad loop when he heard Safu.

            “I knew I’d find you here. Don’t you worry you might have an addiction to the ice?”

            Shion slipped from his arabesque into his quad loop, landing squarely and closing his eyes as he skated an easy figure eight. “It’s not an addiction if I can quit when I want to. I just don’t want to.”

            “That’s what all addicts say.”

            Shion smiled, opened his eyes to find his best friend with her hands on her hips. “Why are you up so early?”

            “Like I said, I knew I’d have to collect you from the rink and force you to the bakery for our meeting.”

            “You’re coming?”

            “Of course I’m coming!” Safu said, and Shion didn’t know why he’d expected anything else.

            “I have a few minutes.”

            “That could be spent helping your mother in the bakery. Come on, let’s go,” Safu said, so Shion skated towards her, slipping out the door and pulling off his skates.

            “I felt a little jittery. I thought skating could relax me,” he explained.

            “Jittery,” Safu repeated slowly, and Shion could tell she was watching him as he pulled on his sneakers, which he hadn’t bothered to leave in the dressing room.

            “There was something about him, don’t you think? Magnetic,” Shion murmured, straightening up and recalling the actor on stage, almost glowing, almost magical.

            “That’s the nature of the ballet, Shion. He was supposed to draw you in, that’s his job. He won’t be like that in real life. It’s all lights and make-up and talent.”

            Shion left his skates on the bench, figuring he’d be right back for them, and he had the entire rink booked for the week since he’d need privacy to train the actor. “What do you think he’ll be like in real life?” Shion asked, walking with Safu to the exit.

            Safu glanced at him. “Normal,” she replied, as if surprised by the question, but when Shion tried to imagine the actor who’d been almost supernaturally beautiful on stage the night before as normal, it felt impossible.

            “Normal,” Shion repeated, testing the word, finding it didn’t fit in describing the actor at all.

            “He’s just another guy, Shion,” Safu reminded, nudging Shion’s hip gently with her own. “Don’t be so enchanted by him. If anything, he should be the one captivated by you, Mr. Gold Medalist.”

            Shion laughed at the thought of the actor who’d had Shion’s heart racing during the entirety of his production being captivated by himself. It was almost ridiculous. It almost warmed Shion from the inside-out.

*

The bakery was small and warm.

            “Stepping in here is like getting a hug,” Nezumi’s agent said, almost wondrously as she walked in after him, and Nezumi glanced at her.

            “Should you be saying such stupid things right now? I thought we were trying to make a good first impression.”

            “What did I tell you about being nice?” his agent snapped, and Nezumi smirked silently in response.

            He looked around. There were several tables of different shapes and sizes around the room, with different types of stools and chairs surrounding them. Three of the tables were occupied by customers, some talking to each other, others reading newspapers. The place smelled incredible, and Nezumi could immediately see the source of the smell showcased in the glass display counter beside the register.

            “Do you think we should sit down, or – ”

            “Oh, hello!” A cheerful voice interrupted his agent’s, and Nezumi’s attention was stolen from a row of pine tarts to a woman he recognized from the figure skater’s videos.

            The figure skater’s mother and coach. Karan.

            “Hi. You must be Karan. I’m Kiyoko, we spoke on the phone.” Nezumi’s agent stepped forward, held out a hand that the figure skater’s mother shook with both of her own.

            “Kiyoko, hi, it’s so lovely to meet you. And you must be Nezumi, it’s so great to finally meet you as well. Let me collect my son, he’s just in the back. Would you like to have a seat? Any table is fine, we’ll bring out tea and snacks.”

            “Do you need help with anything?” Nezumi asked, smiling at the woman as she shook his hand. Her palm was warm and soft enough that he was surprised by it. He smiled warmly at her, knowing he could be charming when he wanted to – or more typically, when his agent demanded it from him.

            “No, no, that’s all right, do sit down.”

            When Karan left them, Nezumi followed his agent to a table by the window.

            “Where do you think the red eyes came from? His mom’s are brown,” Nezumi asked, leaning back in his seat until his agent slapped his arm.

            “Sit up! And don’t you dare ask Shion about his appearance.”

            “All right, all right, you’re the one who should learn to be nice,” Nezumi muttered, sitting up and resisting the urge to rub his arm.

            It was not the figure skater who appeared from the back door first, but a young woman Nezumi guessed was around his age. She had shoulder-length hair, a smooth expression, and a gaze that slid slowly over Nezumi’s face like he was not a person at all, but a calculation to be unraveled.

            Nezumi watched her back until his gaze was caught by the man who walked out from the back door behind her.

            The figure skater. Shion.

            Behind Shion came his mother, but Nezumi had already met the mother, didn’t care to look away from the figure skater, who didn’t seem to want to look away from him either.

            Nezumi was used to this. He knew what he looked like. He wondered if the figure skater was used to stares as well.

            Beside him, Nezumi was aware of his agent standing, so Nezumi stood as well while their hosts walked towards the table, the young woman the one to extend her hand first.

            “I’m Safu, Shion’s best friend. We saw your production of _Swan Lake_ last night. You are very talented.”

            Nezumi made himself look away from the figure skater to offer the woman – Safu – a quick smile. “Thank you, I’m flattered.” He had not known that the figure skater had seen his production, and glanced at him again even before he’d freed his hand from the woman’s. “And what did you think?”

            The figure skater smiled easily, the same smile Nezumi had examined longer than he cared to admit, pausing the videos his agent had given him for educational purposes. “I thought you were the most beautiful person I’d ever seen in my life.”

            Nezumi blinked, forgetting to extend his hand.

            “I’m Shion, but you probably figured that out. And you’re Nezumi. It’s an honor to meet you, you have incredible talent.”

            Nezumi was vaguely aware that this was what he was supposed to be saying to Shion, the world’s most famous and celebrated figure skater, winner of five gold medals, eight medals total. He found, however, that it was difficult to say anything at all.

            “I believe the real privilege is ours. We’ve been watching your tapes, Shion, you really are incredible on the ice,” Nezumi’s agent said, in a voice Nezumi heard vaguely. “I’m Nezumi’s agent, Kiyoko. It’s an honor.”

            Nezumi reminded himself to focus. Straightened out his charming smile, unsure what his expression had been falling into but not caring to know.

            “Shall we sit?” Safu asked, and Nezumi glanced at the table to see it covered in mugs and baked goods, a small pitcher of milk and a bowl of sugar cubes amidst the rest. He had not noticed these items being placed there, wondered vaguely where they’d come from as he sat back down.

            The figure skater was separated from him by Safu, but she had a small frame, was easy to disregard.

            “Milk and sugar?” the figure skater asked, holding out a mug of tea he’d poured, and Nezumi took it carefully, not allowing their skin to touch.

            “No, thanks.”

            “Nezumi doesn’t like sweet things,” his agent supplied.

            “Oh, really? You’re lucky. I love sugar, it makes it hard to stay in shape for the season,” Shion said, smiling again, another easy smile that Nezumi drank in as he sipped his tea, filling with warmth that he fully attributed to the hot drink and nothing else.

            “Why are you choosing to do a feature film? After seeing you in the theater, I’m surprised you’d want to leave the stage,” Safu said, and Nezumi glanced at her.

            “The money,” he replied, not thinking. He received a swift kick in the shin that he tactfully ignored, not even bothering to glare at his agent.

            “He’s joking,” his agent cut in.

            Nezumi couldn’t remember why his agent was even there. Why anyone else was there but him and the figure skater – weren’t they the only ones who really needed to be acquainted? Wasn’t everyone else superfluous?

            “Why would you agree to coach me? Aren’t you busy training for the next gold medal?” Nezumi asked, and the figure skater tilted his head while Nezumi received another kick in the shin. He’d be properly bruised by the end of the meeting, but found it hard to care.

            “The money,” Shion said, and then he laughed so abruptly he nearly cut himself off, a giggle that erupted into the palm he lifted to stifle it while Nezumi stared at him, feeling his own lips quirk up, lifting his mug to hide them.

            “He hasn’t agreed yet, this is preliminary,” Safu said.

            “A test run,” Nezumi’s agent added, and Nezumi knew it was a warning for him to behave himself, but he didn’t care to behave himself in the slightest.

            He felt reckless. That must have been what his pulse vibrating under his skin meant. That must have been what the stifling heat over his body meant.

            “I wasn’t going to agree,” Shion said, as if no one else had spoken. He’d collected himself, though his breathless grin lingered. “But then I saw you yesterday.”

            Shion spoke simply, as if the words could suffice as a reason, and he didn’t offer any additional explanation.

            Nezumi narrowed his eyes, tried to understand him, was not given a chance to as Karan was offering him muffins. Nezumi agreed, mostly to have something to do with his hands, which felt shaky, itchy, much like the rest of him.

            The figure skater was unsettling, but Nezumi found that he had no desire at all to be settled.

*

Shion expected the actor – Nezumi – to be graceful the way he’d been on stage. He ran through a few instructions as Nezumi tried on skates on the bench beside him, long fingers lacing up one after the other.

            “The balance is in your hips and knees, not your feet,” Shion said, not thinking about the words, more focused on the way Nezumi’s hair fell forward as he bent down, the way he’d reach a hand up, tuck his hair behind a pale ear every few seconds only for it to free itself half a moment later, dark as a curtain of deep seawater. “Have you been on the ice before?”

            Nezumi tightened the bows of his laces, stood up in a careful way. Shion looked up at him, the length of him. He was tall, long-limbed. He wore a baggy sweater with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows that fell loosely over the black leggings clinging to the length of his legs. The sweater was sky blue and said _Cinderella_ on the front with pale pink letters. The back said _CAST – NEZUMI._

            “No,” Nezumi said. He had a low voice, but it projected, as if he was always on stage, whispering for an audience. Shion found himself leaning forward with each word Nezumi spoke. He leaned forward at the silences between the words. He leaned forward with every breath he took and released.

            “Are you scared?” Shion asked, though he’d meant to say – _It seems scary at first, but it’s not that bad once you get used to it._

            Nezumi looked at him in a quick way. His eyes were like lights in that Shion felt as though his skin glowed with every look of them, felt himself become illuminated until his entire body radiated.

            “Should I be?” Nezumi asked, though it didn’t sound like a question.

            Shion stood up as well, also in his skates. He did not answer Nezumi’s question. “You’ll have to break in the skates. Your feet might hurt, get blisters.”

            “I’m used to blisters,” Nezumi replied, and Shion thought about ballet shoes, how the dancers would balance themselves on the flats of their toes with the ease as if they walked on clouds.

            He nodded. “Good. There’s no use stalling out here then, let’s get on the ice.”

            Shion led the way to the door of the rink, pushing it open and stepping onto the ice, smooth from the Zamboni that had cleaned it that morning. He skated backwards a few feet to give Nezumi space and watched the actor come to the door, step out carefully with one foot, then the next. He closed the door behind him just as he nearly fell, his feet shooting out in front of him.

            Nezumi grabbed the wall of the rink, and Shion could see the tightness of his grip as he stopped himself from falling flat on his ass, pushing himself up as his skates scrabbled over the ice.

            “Shit,” the actor hissed, while Shion skated over, hesitant to reach out but unsure of his own hesitance.

            He had a feeling Nezumi would not welcome help, but then, he had come to this rink for that very purpose, and Shion reminded himself of this as he reached out to grip Nezumi’s arm through his sweatshirt.

            “Take a breath and steady yourself,” he said quietly, not looking at Nezumi’s face but his skates, which stopped scrabbling gradually and came to a stop.

            Shion was about to let go of Nezumi, but the actor pulled his arm away first, not jerkily, but gently, as if Shion had not been touching him at all.

            Shion stepped back, watched Nezumi’s hard breaths and narrowed eyes, the crease between them hidden when he looked up and his bangs fell over his forehead.

            “Now what?” he asked, as if he hadn’t nearly fallen.

            “You’ll have to let go of the wall,” Shion said. He’d never coached anyone, at least not professionally, and tried to remember his mother’s advice when he’d been a child, though it was hard to conjure memories from when he’d been so young.

            His mother had been a figure skater herself, making it to the Grand Prix Final only once and winning the sole gold medal of her career before retiring. Not eight months later, Shion had been born.

            Nezumi had not let go of the wall. He was looking down at his feet again, his hair falling over his face, and Shion thought about recommending he tie it up, but he liked the silk of it, how it grazed over the pale of Nezumi’s cheeks and neck, how it stuck on the sky-blue shoulders of his oversized sweater.

            “What do I do after I let go?” Nezumi asked. 

            Shion remembered his mother holding his hand. The way he’d only let go of the wall because he’d known there was something – someone – else to hold on to.

            He bit his lip, then skated forward again, closed the distance between himself and the actor, held out his hand.

            “Hold my hand.”

            Nezumi wore gloves that bared the top segments of his fingertips. He looked at Shion’s hand for only a second before reaching out with his own. Shion felt the fabric of his glove, the cool of his fingerprints where they poked out from the fabric and pressed against Shion’s skin.

            “You can let go of the wall now,” Shion reminded, and Nezumi’s hand tightened around his own before the actor released the wall.

            Nezumi’s grip was strong. Shion wanted to wince but didn’t. When he looked into Nezumi’s face, it was to see complete composure, and Shion wondered if he was imagining the feel of Nezumi’s fingernails digging into the back of his hand.

            “I don’t want you to learn anything today but how to be comfortable on the ice. We won’t bother with steps or jumps or combinations. None of that will matter unless you can trust yourself to stand,” Shion said, speaking slowly, watching Nezumi tuck his hair back behind an ear, watching the hair fall forward across his cheek again.

            “Okay,” Nezumi said, and Shion was surprised he hadn’t objected, expected Nezumi to be opposed to taking his lessons slowly.

            Shion reminded himself that he didn’t even know Nezumi. They were strangers. It was irrational to even make assumptions about the man and what he might want, what he might feel, what he might desire.

            “I won’t let go of you. Let’s take a few steps. It’s not like walking, but I doubt I need to tell you that. I expect it’s a lot like taking steps in ballet, where you glide, where you allow yourself to be weightless. I think we should start out lapping the rink, close enough to the wall where you can reach out to it if you need it, but I don’t want you to rely on it. Rely on me, I’m right beside you.”

            Nezumi nodded, and Shion pushed forward for their first step, instructing Nezumi to watch his feet, to copy him, to trust himself and not concern himself with balancing, but with going forward.

            “If you pretend it’s as easy as walking, you forget that it’s not,” he said, and Nezumi slid forward, tentative, slow, not at all graceful as Shion had expected.

            While he gave no indication of it other than the unyielding grip on Shion’s hand, Shion knew Nezumi was scared. He fell several times, often taking Shion down with him, but he never reached out for the wall of the rink, and Shion never let go of his hand.

            They did nothing but lap the rink, over and over while Nezumi continued to fall and Shion continued to encourage him. Nezumi said nothing when he fell but for hissed curses under his breath, but he always got up quickly again, was the first to pull Shion forward to finish their lap, to start another.

            Hours were spent this way until Shion felt Nezumi’s grip loosen from his, and then Nezumi’s hand was gone, and they skated beside each other, Shion telling Nezumi how to move his arms with his body for more balance, Nezumi following the instructions wordlessly. He fell only once more after that, but soon when Shion glanced over at him, it was to see hints of the grace Shion had at first expected.

            Shion had a feeling they’d long since passed the time he’d planned for them to break for lunch, but Shion said nothing, and Nezumi didn’t either. The neck of his blue _Cinderella_ sweater was soaked in sweat, and his bangs plastered to the sides of his face, but Nezumi did not stop, and Shion matched every step he took.

            Shion was not wearing his watch, and by the time he remembered to squint at the clock on the wall as they passed it, it was to see that it was three in the afternoon.

            “Nezumi.”

            Nezumi made no sound, but Shion assumed he’d been heard.

            “We can stop. We should stop, take a break, it’s been six hours. Your feet must kill you.”

            Nezumi said nothing for a second, kept skating, and then, quietly – “I don’t know how.”

            “How what?”

            “To stop.”

            This surprised Shion, who stared at Nezumi for a moment, then laughed. “Oh. I forgot. Is that why you haven’t stopped all this time?”

            This time, Nezumi did not reply.

            “Well, all right, it’s simple. You sort of tilt your foot so that you can push the flat part of the blade against the ice, and the friction will stop you. It helps to bend your knees in order to keep your balance. Does that make sense?”

            “Sure.”

            “Okay, ready?”

            “Okay.”

            Shion stopped first, glancing at Nezumi, who did not stop at all, kept gliding forward for a few more seconds before he stuck out his foot abruptly and fell back, arms waving until he was flat on his back.

            “Ow, shit.”

            Shion skated towards him, offered a hand that Nezumi did not take, pushing himself off the ice on his own instead.

            “I guess my explanation wasn’t thorough enough, and maybe I should have given a better demonstration. I’m sorry about that.”

            “It’s fine,” Nezumi replied, pushing his fingers through his bangs before peering at Shion.

            A swiftly burning feeling jolted through Shion. To have Nezumi’s unfocused attention on him all at once was a jarring thing, shook his pulse in an unfamiliar way, an incredible way. “You did well. Really. I wouldn’t just say that, you’re a quick learner. We can work on stopping after we take a break, you must be hungry.”

            Nezumi only shrugged, turning to the wall and skating slowly towards it before stepping carefully along it to the door, where he let himself out of the rink. Shion followed him, sat beside him as they changed out of their skates.

            When Nezumi stood up again, Shion saw his wince just barely, in the slight narrow of his eyes. Shion knew he only noticed it because he’d been searching for an indication of discomfort. It did not surprise him that Nezumi did not easily show pain.         

            “My apartment is near to here, we’ll ice your feet so the swelling goes down for our afternoon practice. And we should have something to eat. Do you like sushi? There’s a place right next to my apartment where we can stop in.”

            “That’s fine,” Nezumi said, and he was silent as he followed Shion out of the rink into the cool afternoon.

            Nezumi was not talkative. When he spoke, he did so quietly, sparingly. Shion was not used to being around people like Nezumi. He was not used to stretches of silences, but he did not find them uncomfortable, and did not work as hard as he could have to fill them. He let them stretch between himself and Nezumi, wondered how long he himself could go without speaking, felt as though it was something he had to practice at, something that Nezumi would teach him while Shion taught the actor to skate.

            The rink was a block from Shion’s apartment – one of the reasons he’d moved to that particularly location – and they stopped to get sushi before Shion led them to his place, taking the elevator to give Nezumi’s feet a break even though it was only on the third floor.

            In his apartment, Shion emptied the ice trays in his freezer into a mixing bowl and instructed Nezumi to sit at the counter and shed his socks, noting that there were indeed blisters on the sides of his feet by his toes. Nezumi’s toenails were incredibly short, cut almost meticulously in small squares.

            “They’ll get worse throughout the week,” Shion said, while Nezumi dipped his feet in the bowl of ice with a murmured, _Thanks._

            “I know,” Nezumi replied, and again, Shion remembered he did ballet.

            “When did you start practicing ballet?” Shion asked, grabbing plates and chopsticks for them. He knew from the file Nezumi’s agent had sent that Nezumi was twenty-five years old like himself.

            Nezumi was quiet, and Shion didn’t think he was going to reply until he did. “When I was seven.”

            Shion pushed his luck, knowing it was more likely that Nezumi would not keep answering his questions than that he would. “How did you get into it?”

            He slid a plate to Nezumi, sat beside him on a stool, and watched the top of Nezumi’s head, as Nezumi was still looking down at his feet in the bowl of ice.

            “My mother was a ballerina.” As he spoke, Nezumi looked up, and Shion froze in the midst of opening his tray of sushi.

            There was a softness to Nezumi’s expression that took Shion’s breath away. He had no desire for his breath to ever return. He would allow his lungs to be remain deflated forever, if only for the softness of Nezumi’s expression to linger.

            “Did she coach you?” Shion asked, keeping his voice gentle as if Nezumi were a deer in his path he wasn’t bold enough to coax forward but would do anything not to scare away.

            At this, Nezumi almost seemed to flinch, an expression like confusion crossing his features as if he were startled by the question, and Shion tried to think of what could be so startling about it.

            Shion himself had been coached by his mother. It wasn’t an unexpected thought.

            By the time Shion blinked, Nezumi’s features had smoothed again. No longer soft, but his usual expression of composure, calm detachment. “No,” Nezumi replied, and nothing else.

            Shion didn’t press the topic. The conversation felt completed, though Shion was left with more questions than before.

            Even so, he allowed them to eat in silence, and then their hour was up. Nezumi was the first to stand, replace his socks and shoes, and lean by the door in wait of Shion, who hurried to put on his own shoes and follow Nezumi back to the rink for the rest of the day’s lesson.

*

There was a ballet studio on the outskirts of the small town where Shion lived that Nezumi found after his third day of lessons.

            His feet were sore and blistered the way they hadn’t been since he’d broken in his last pair of ballet shoes. Even so, Nezumi ended his walk immediately to return to his hotel room to collect his ballet shoes and change out of jeans into leggings.

            On the way back out of the hotel, he found his agent at the bar, flirting with the bartender from what Nezumi could tell as he intended to walk past unnoticed.

            “Nezumi!”

            Nezumi contemplated not turning around. Was still contemplating when his decision was made for him by a hand on his arm.

            “Hey, don’t pull, Kiyoko.” Nezumi jerked his arm back to free himself.

            “Have a drink with us,” his agent said, smiling widely, and Nezumi glanced at the bartender, who winked at him.

            “No, thanks,” Nezumi replied.

            “Where are you going? Aren’t your lessons done for the day? How are they going? Are you being nice to Shion? Did he say if he would sign the contract and take you on permanently?”

            “I’m going out,” Nezumi replied, ignoring the rest of the questions and turning again to leave, relieved when he was not stopped.

            The air outside was dark and cool. It was only seven, but winter stole away the afternoons to quickly replace them with night. Shion’s lessons left Nezumi exhausted, but he preferred exhaustion to being cooped up in a hotel room. He was well-accustomed to exhaustion. His body craved it, and he found sleep nearly impossible to come by at night without it settled deep into his bones.

            He walked quickly to the ballet studio, only remembering that he didn’t have free reign over this studio as he had the ice rink after he let himself in and was greeted by a teenage girl behind a counter, chewing a piece of gum that seemed too big for her mouth.

            “Hey,” she said.

            “Hi,” Nezumi replied, walking forward slowly.

            “You’re not from here,” the girl said, leaning forward, chewing loudly.

            Nezumi didn’t argue. It was a small town. The kind of place where everyone knew each other, and everyone knew who wasn’t supposed to be around.

            “Is the studio available for open practice?”     

            “There’s two studios. One’s occupied for Seiji’s last practice, but the other is free right now. We don’t normally just let anyone come in and use it, though, it’s usually Amaya’s room, but she doesn’t have night practices,” the girl continued.

            Nezumi ran a hand through his bangs, watched the girl’s eyes follow his movements, smiled briefly.

            “Could you make an exception?” he asked, letting his smile spread.

            “I don’t think so,” the girl hedged.

            “If no one’s using the room, there’s no real harm, is there? When does the studio close?”

            “Nine,” the girl said, looking tentative.

            Nezumi smiled wider, watched her faint blush. “I’ll give you five bucks an hour. Technically, it’s seven fifteen, but I’ll give you ten bucks anyway.”

            “I’d have to ask,” the girl said, after a moment.

            Nezumi leaned forward, rested his forearms on the counter between himself and the girl. “Make sure you tell them I said please.”

            The girl stared, nodded, then nearly ran from the counter through a back door. Nezumi leant against the counter, and soon enough the girl was back, a man following her.

            “I’m Seiji, hi. Nagisa tells me you’re interested in using the free studio?”

            “If it wouldn’t be too much trouble,” Nezumi replied, straightening up.

            The man seemed to examine him. “I haven’t seen you around.”

            “I’m here temporarily. At least the next four nights. I’d like to use your studio from seven to nine. Nightly, preferably, if that could be arranged.”

            “We offer lessons, there’s room in my class.”

            “I’m not interested in lessons,” Nezumi replied, and the man crossed his arms.

            “Can I ask why you’re in town for these few days?”

            “Job research.”

            The man squinted. “What’s your name?”

            Nezumi restrained his sigh. All he wanted was to do a few pirouettes, but it hardly seemed worth dealing with all the hassle. “Nezumi.”

            Immediately, the man’s expression shifted to recognition. “Shion is teaching you.”

            Nezumi shrugged, unsurprised of Shion’s fame in the town. The figure skater was famous worldwide, of course everyone around him would know his personal business. “Guess so.”

            “In that case, that’s perfectly fine. Is it part of your training? Feel free to use to the studio whenever you want, Nagisa is here in the afternoons and will let you in.”

            Nezumi narrowed his eyes. “You don’t want payment?”

            “Of course not!” the man said, laughing, though Nezumi couldn’t see the joke.

            Still, if this idiot didn’t want money, Nezumi wasn’t about to go around giving out charity.

            “Great, I appreciate it,” Nezumi said.

            “I can show him. Can I show him?” the girl, Nagisa, apparently, asked the man, who nodded.

            “I’ll be in the adjoining studio if you need me, feel free to join any lesson you’d like.”

            Nezumi nodded at the man, who disappeared out the back door, and then Nagisa was running around the counter, beckoning to Nezumi, who followed her through another door, which led straight to a studio.

            “The dressing room is through that door back there, if you need it. Lights are here, you can dim them too if you want. That’s it, I think – Did you need anything? Ballet flats? We have rentals, but I’m sure you could borrow them for free.”

            “Got my own, thanks,” Nezumi said, lifting his bag.

            “Oh, wow, so you’re, like, a pro then?” the girl asked, leaning forward.

            “Something like that,” Nezumi hedged, stooping down to change his shoes, but also to give the girl a hint that he hadn’t gone through the trouble of getting access to this studio in order to chat with her.

            Thankfully, the girl got the hint, and bid Nezumi goodbye with another reminder that she’d be just outside the door if he needed her.

            When she left, Nezumi glanced around the studio. Small, but Nezumi didn’t mind small. The walls were lined with mirrors, the floors a smooth and shiny wood, and there was a bar across one side – all that Nezumi required from a studio.

            He tied his ballet shoes up his calves over his leggings, then lowered down to stretch, closing his eyes and breathing deeply into his stretches. With each inhale, he took in more oxygen, let out more air from his lungs with each exhale.

            If he breathed deeply enough, he was certain, he could finally calm his heart that been beating much too quickly since he first came to this rural town, since he first set his eyes on their beloved figure skater, since he first met Shion.

*


	2. Chapter 2

On Thursday, the winter sun was relentless as it burst through the windows of the rink.

            Nezumi had his sweater tied around his waist and his t-shirt stuck to his skin. It was his fifth day of lessons. There would have been only two days left if Shion didn’t sign the contract, but Shion had known on the first day that he would.

            Just the thought of Nezumi leaving his side left Shion with a hollowed feeling.

            Nezumi was now comfortable on ice, could glide easily and quickly, and Shion had moved onto teaching him positions, straying away from spins and jumps. They’d spent the morning working on a simple catchfoot position, but every time Nezumi lifted his skate back to grip it, he lost confidence and either jerked his foot down so that his skate pierced the ice, or he fell.

            Currently, he was falling. Shion had spent the previous day teaching Nezumi nothing but how to fall – from different positions and different heights – so that when he inevitably did for the duration of their training, he would be less likely to injure himself.

            “Shit!” Nezumi cursed, pushing himself back up on legs much sturdier than they’d been five days before.

            “Nezumi, you need to – ”

            “Trust myself, yeah, I heard you the first eighteen times,” Nezumi snapped.

            Shion chose not to retort.

            Nezumi’s hair was in a bun today, the first time Shion had seen it this way outside his production of _Swan Lake_ , though now it was distinctly messier, strands falling from it and sticking to his neck and face. He’d attempted to clip back his bangs, but a bulk of them had slipped free.

            Shion, on the other hand, had finally gotten a haircut the day before, and no longer had to deal with his own hair flying into his eyes.

            “You’re rushing this. We shouldn’t be trying the catchfoot, I forgot the difficultly level of it – ”

            “It’s not difficult,” Nezumi argued. He was angry. Shion had not seen him angry before – frustrated, yes, but usually he hid that well, only letting it slip in the creases between his eyebrows, the narrowing of his eyes, the slight downturn of his lips.

            Now, Shion could see it in the jerkiness of Nezumi’s movements, his roughness on the ice. The cuts of his blades against the no longer smooth surface were deeper, had flecks of shaved ice flying up as he skated by.

            “Why don’t we try the lunge again?” Shion suggested, skating near Nezumi but keeping a good distance between them, skating around him in circles rather than bridging the feet of ice that separated them.

            “I’m fine with the lunge, I need to get this fucking move.”

            “You’re used to ballet, I think you’re trying to balance yourself in the same way, but it might be different on ice. Where do you place your weight when you lift your leg in ballet?”

            “I know it’s different on ice,” Nezumi snapped, not answering Shion’s question, skating farther from him before he attempted the catchfoot again. This time he held his blade for several seconds after he lifted his leg up behind him. As he continued to stretch his leg up behind him, bringing his blade higher so that his foot was just behind his head – nearly at the perfect position for a Biellmann spin, though he needed to lift his leg just an inch or so higher – Nezumi’s hand slipped, and Shion knew what was going to happen before it did.

            Contrary to popular belief, it was not the actual blade that led to cut fingers, but most commonly the inside edge. Nezumi had shed his gloves earlier that day, and Shion watched as his leg dropped before his fingers loosened their grip so that the inside edge of the blade sliced them.

            The actor fell roughly with a splatter of red as Shion skated quickly towards him, skidding to a stop and dropping down.

            “Fuck,” Nezumi hissed, pushing himself up from his sprawl with his elbows, though he stayed seated, and Shion reached out to take his injured hand. “It’s fine,” Nezumi protested, but Shion didn’t let him pull away.

            “These are deep cuts,” Shion murmured, examining each of Nezumi’s long fingers individually, though only two – the forefinger and middle finger – had thick cuts through their second segments.

            The red of Nezumi’s blood was vibrant against his pale skin, trickling down, touching Shion’s skin. It was incredibly warm. Shion felt his grip loosening, and then Nezumi had pulled his hand free.

            “It’s fine,” Nezumi said again, standing up now, pushing himself up with his hands so that he stained the ice with smears of scarlet.

            “You need to wrap those in gauze.”

            “For a paper cut?” Nezumi demanded, and Shion stood up as well, looking down at Nezumi’s hand to see that it was dripping more blood onto the ice, miniature splatters turning the rink into a crime scene.

            “Blades aren’t made of paper,” Shion replied calmly, grabbing Nezumi’s uninjured hand and pulling him.

            Nezumi might have been stronger than him, but Shion had more strength on ice, pulled him easily to the door of the rink and led him out from the ice.

            “Sit,” Shion instructed, releasing Nezumi to point to the bench beside the rink.

            “So dramatic,” Nezumi muttered, but he sat as he was told.

            “I’ll be right back. Stay there,” Shion said, pulling off his skates. He didn’t bother to replace them with his sneakers, and went in socks to the back room for the first aid kit. He had to stand on his toes to reach the top shelf, pulled it down, and walked quickly back to the rink.

            He slowed on seeing Nezumi, who was stretching, sitting with one leg extended along the length of the bench and his uninjured hand wrapped around his boot between the shoe and the blade.

            When Shion approached him, Nezumi straightened up, dropping his leg from the bench, and Shion sat in its place. He held his hand out, and Nezumi offered his own. Blood dripped down his fingers to his palm, pooling in the creases and slathered on the pale skin.

            “Does it hurt?” Shion asked, opening the first aid kit.

            “Will you kiss the pain away if it does?”

            Shion looked up from the contents of the kit to find Nezumi smirking lazily at him. “Do you want me to?” Shion asked, his rib cage tightening painfully around his heart when Nezumi’s smirk widened.

            “Don’t make offers you can’t deliver,” Nezumi replied, when Shion finally looked away from his lips, rummaged around the kit and pulled out cotton pads and peroxide.

            He doused the pads and took Nezumi’s hand in his, looking carefully at his skin, wiping first at the uninjured parts of him – his palm, the creases in it, the lifelines and lovelines that Shion wished he could read, see if in Nezumi’s future there was a figure skater present, see if in Nezumi’s future there was an unexpected love story, see if in Nezumi’s future there was his own name spelled out.

            Shion wiped the uninjured fingers next, fingers that were relaxed, curled gently over Shion’s skin. Nezumi was unnaturally docile, did not move his hand at all as Shion shifted it in his own. It was as if Shion had free reign over it, could do whatever he wanted with it, could take this hand as his own and never give it back.

            He soaked a new cotton pad for the injured fingers, wiping down the middle finger first, then the forefinger, not going near the cuts yet.

            “It will sting,” he told Nezumi’s fingers. He had decided he wouldn’t reply to Nezumi’s words, he wouldn’t keep up their banter, he wouldn’t say anything to – _Don’t make offers you can’t deliver –_ because then he would be too tempted to deliver them, to bring Nezumi’s fingers to his lips, to kiss the lines of red like they had appeared only for that reason – for Shion’s lips to trace, for Shion’s breath to seal.

            Nezumi said nothing. Shion could hear his breaths. Maybe they were his own breaths. Maybe it wasn’t breaths at all that he was hearing, but the rotation of the Earth, the shift of tectonic plates, the rush of the ocean miles away, suddenly clear to him, suddenly loud between his ears.

            Shion knew he had feelings for Nezumi. These feelings had surprised him on their first arrival, surprised him with their abruptness, their suddenness, their unexpectedness, their entirety.

            He was no longer surprised by them. Grew more and more familiar with them as the days went by beside Nezumi, interacting with him, speaking to him, watching to him, touching him on the occasions he was allowed – to position Nezumi’s legs, to arrange Nezumi’s arms, to hold Nezumi steady when the man lost his balance.

            These feelings were easy to rationalize. Nezumi was very beautiful. That was the root of them, the beginning – he was beautiful, and the feelings had been shallow at first, based on looks and nothing but looks until there was Nezumi in his mother’s bakery, looking at Shion in that way he did, that way that was all-encompassing, and then the feelings had changed.

            More than looks. There was Nezumi’s demeanor. Quiet and gentle. Like a shadow, and Shion wished Nezumi would always be beside him, would follow him everywhere he went.

            There was Nezumi’s concentration. An all-encompassing focus to learn, to listen, to understand. To leave Shion breathless, knowing there was Nezumi’s attention on him and only him and nothing else at all.

            There was Nezumi’s frustration, the quiet moments of it until it bloomed into anger. The creases between his eyebrows. The hard shove of his fingers into the night sky of his hair.

            And there were Nezumi’s words. The scarcity of them, but there were more now. He did not only reply to Shion’s questions now. He spoke his own, he made comments, he unraveled himself for Shion to see the second layer of him, the third, maybe hints of the fourth, but none of it was enough.

            Shion wanted all of Nezumi. Would start with the blood of his fingers that he touched with the tip of his cotton pad. There was a nearly imperceptible flinch of Nezumi’s fingers that Shion felt only because he held these fingers carefully.

            The cotton pad quickly turned pink, a soft pale pink of sunsets, then deeper, a flower petal pink, azalea pink. Shion lifted the cotton, inspected Nezumi’s fingers, bent his head down to look closely at the tips.

            “What’s the prognosis, doc? Am I going to make it?” Nezumi asked, and his voice was quiet.

            Shion smiled at his fingertips. “I think you’ll live.”

            “You saved my life.”

            “Can’t let you die on my watch,” Shion replied, letting go of the fingers only to retrieve gauze from the kit that he wrapped carefully, slow movements because the slower he moved the longer he could hold Nezumi’s hand, touch his warm skin.

            While the feelings Shion had for Nezumi were familiar now, they were no less overwhelming. He’d had only five days with the man, and they had no reason to feel like a lifetime.

            “Shion.”

            Shion looked up. Found that Nezumi’s face was rather close to him. Looked at his parted lips, looked at his eyes only secondarily. They were a deep grey, eyes of a storm. His eyelashes were long and thick like fake lashes, like the stick-ons that they sold at drugstores.

            “My agent wanted me to ask you.”

            Shion told himself to stop thinking about Nezumi’s eyelashes. “Ask me what?”

            “Will you continue to coach me?”

            “Yes.” He didn’t have to think about it. He didn’t have to breathe.

            Nezumi’s eyes narrowed, a shift of his eyelashes. “For how long?”

            _Forever._

            Shion made himself breathe. “The season begins in July. I can coach you until then. That’s almost six months.” He looked back down at Nezumi’s fingers. Made sure he was wrapping the gauze tight. Reached back into the kit for medical tape that caught on his own fingers. He shook his hand to free them.

            “Don’t you need to train?” Nezumi’s free hand was on Shion’s now. Unsticking the medical tape. Their skin touched once, twice, three times, again.

            “Oh. Yeah.”

            “Can you coach me and train at the same time?” Nezumi asked.

            Shion didn’t know when Nezumi was going to start filming. That felt important, but he didn’t care to ask.

            “Yes,” Shion replied, even though this may not have been true. He was trying to learn and master a quad axel. The impossible jump. Especially impossible if he were teaching Nezumi the basics instead of dedicating his time to learning it. Especially impossible if his head was full of Nezumi instead of anything else.

            “Are you sure?” Nezumi was asking.

            Shion finished wrapping the gauze. Dropped his hand from Nezumi and the supplies back in the kit. Closed the kit and stood up, glancing down at Nezumi, who was examining his fingers.

            “Tell your agent I’ll sign the contract tonight. Can you practice more today?”

            “Of course,” Nezumi said, standing as well, wavering on the thin blades of his skates.

            “I’ll put the kit back. Go back on the ice and practice the lunge position until I get back. We’ll stop with the catchfoot for now, and I’ll teach you the spread eagle.” Shion turned before Nezumi could protest, replaced the kit in the back room in his socks, and returned to the bench to put on his skates.

            While he laced them, Shion watched Nezumi on the ice, skating a figure eight before dipping down into a lunge, gliding over the ice for a few feet in this way, then straightening up and lifting his leg back behind him, reaching out for it with his gauzed fingers and completing the catchfoot position.

            Shion could see the way he wobbled over the ice, but he didn’t fall, and then Nezumi was releasing his skate, skating another figure eight before lifting his leg again behind him as he leaned forward into the camel spin position, which Shion had yet to teach him since he had not even introduced Nezumi to spins.

            The position wasn’t perfect, but it wasn’t bad, and then Nezumi was tripping out of it, taking quick steps before he fell onto the ice.

            Shion stood up, walked to the rink, stepped onto the ice and skated towards him. “What was that?”

            “Saw you doing it,” Nezumi muttered, standing up.

            Shion couldn’t recall skating in front of Nezumi other than to teach him positions.

            “In a video,” Nezumi continued, glancing at his elbow before dropping his arm.

            “Are you hurt?” Shion asked, looking at Nezumi’s elbow.

            “No.”

            “What video?”

            “Kiyoko gave me a few of your championship videos.”

            Shion reached up, shifted his fingers through his shortened locks. “Oh.” He wondered if Nezumi had watched them all. Studied him. Paused the videos on his face, examined him the way Shion wished he had the time to examine Nezumi, to pause time before it could continue, to stare and inspect, to analyze and study, to memorize and catalogue.

            Nezumi was looking at him now, an eyebrow raised. Shion looked at his lips. Thought about kissing them, not for the first time.

            “Is that a problem?”

            “What?” Shion was wondering if Nezumi would make a sound if he were kissed. If his breaths would be audible. The exact temperature of his exhales on Shion’s own skin, hot or burning, warm or fire.

            Shion did not know if Nezumi had a girlfriend or boyfriend. He could be engaged. He could be married. Shion thought about asking, but now didn’t seem the time, they were talking about something else, Shion couldn’t remember what, but he knew it wasn’t Nezumi’s relationship status, couldn’t be that.

            “Hey.”

            When Shion blinked, Nezumi was closer than before. Right in front of him. Close enough to kiss, but of course Shion did not do that, almost laughed at the thought, almost giggled but stifled it, felt his lips turning up anyway.

            “You’re smiling,” Nezumi said, and his fingers were on Shion’s chin, so unexpected that Shion jerked back, nearly lost his balance but caught himself quickly, steadier on ice than anywhere else.

            “Sorry,” Shion whispered. He wondered if Nezumi knew. Could hear it, could feel it – Shion’s heartbeat, shaken free from his pulse, slipped out of his body and fallen onto the ice, vibrating below their skates in a hasty cadence.

            It helped to rationalize his feelings in his head. To break them down, the way Shion had dissected figure skating when he’d first learned – the positions, spins, and jumps, all easily broken down into angles, degrees, patterns, physics. Shion was a good figure skater because he did so with his head before his heart. He loved to skate, but he loved the mathematics behind the movements just as much. He was intelligent, able to quickly turn computations into routine. Legs were nothing but lines to be bent into angles. Jumps were nothing but calculations of velocity, speed, mass, and distance.

            His feelings, too, could be understood. His attraction was an animal desire. Sexual, lust, nothing more than that. Never mind his swelling heart.

            “Shion.”

            Shion focused. The actor had been in his life for five days. That was not a significant amount of time. Enough for lust but nothing else. Enough for desire but only that. Shion exhaled slowly, feeling better having rationalized it. Yes, he could feel want. That was normal. That was expected.

            “Sorry, I think I zoned out.”

            Nezumi watched Shion the way he did when Shion showed him a new position, like he was scrutinizing, memorizing. “You okay?”

            “Of course,” Shion replied, skating backwards a few feet, then bending into his own camel spin position, spinning a few times to give his heart a reason to race. He straightened up only when he was breathless. “That’s the camel spin.”

            “Yours is a little better than mine,” Nezumi said, his smile small and secretive, like something Shion could slip in his pocket.

            “I don’t want to do spins yet, but that’s just to show you what it looked like.”

            “You don’t think I’m ready for spins.”

            “I don’t think we have to rush it. I’m signing on to be your full-time coach past this week, so we have time, and it makes more sense to perfect the basics before getting into anything else.” Shion wanted to remind Nezumi that he’d only been skating for five days. He’d only been in Shion’s life for five days.

            No need to rush. No need to get ahead of themselves. No need to act rashly, to make assumptions, to feel too much too quickly.

            “If we’re going to do this, I want to do it properly,” Shion continued, and Nezumi watched him for a moment, then nodded.

            “If you say so,” Nezumi replied, so Shion skated closer to him to instruct him on the spread eagle, touching Nezumi’s arms only to position the actor, his waist only to balance him, the small of his back only to steady him and nothing else.

*

Nezumi was aware of being followed. He allowed it because he was also aware of who was following him.

            He let himself into the ballet studio, waved at Nagisa at the front desk, and slipped through the back door as he’d done the two days previous. He was lacing up his ballet shoes when he heard Shion outside the room, announced by Nagisa.

            “Shion!”

            “Hey, Nagisa. How are you?”

            Nezumi lowered himself to stretch. Nagisa began a monologue on what she was learning in school, where she was thinking of applying to colleges, how her volleyball team was going.

            Nezumi had finished stretching by the time she wrapped it up. He was at the bar, shifting between pliés in first, second, fourth, and fifth positions when he heard Shion ask to enter the studio where he practiced.

            His wish was granted, and Nezumi kept his eyes on the mirror opposite the door, watched as Shion’s reflection entered the studio. He lifted his leg into an arabesque and watched Shion’s reflection walk towards his own.

            “How long have you been coming here?” Shion asked, while Nezumi bent his leg, changing his arabesque into an attitude.

            “How long have you been stalking me?”

            Nezumi lifted his head in time to catch the quick of Shion’s smile in the mirror.

            “Just this afternoon. Do you mind?”

            Nezumi straightened up. Kept a hand on the bar as he turned to look at Shion fully. “I’m flattered. And disappointed you have nothing better to do with your time.”

            Shion was looking down the length of Nezumi body with a gaze Nezumi could feel. “You should be resting. You train hard enough on the ice.”

            “I’m used to longer days.”

            “In that case, we can extend your hours at the rink.”

            “I don’t want to exhaust you,” Nezumi replied, feeling his lips quirk up when Shion looked sharply at him. His eyes were incredibly red. It was not the first time Nezumi had noticed this.

            “I’m as physically capable as you are. Maybe more.”

            Nezumi leaned his forearm on the bar. “I don’t doubt it.”

            “Don’t patronize me.”

            “My sincerest apologies,” Nezumi replied. He found Shion fascinating. Was glad Shion had followed him. Was standing in front of him, getting riled up for no reason at all. Was interfering with the small hours of the day Nezumi had to himself.

            Nezumi didn’t want these hours to himself. This was not as startling to realize as it had been the first few days he’d been in Shion’s presence, but it had been five days. Nezumi was used to it now – his fascination with Shion. His interest in the man.

            Shion was interesting. Nezumi’s interest was not entirely unrelated to sex. He would fuck this man easily. In a heartbeat.

            “Are you single?” Shion asked, and Nezumi leaned back from him, wondering for a brief and ridiculous moment if his mind had been read.

            Of course it hadn’t.

            “Is this your attempt at small talk? You’re not very good at it,” Nezumi said slowly.

            “It’s not small talk. I think we’re past the stage where small talk is really necessary. It’s a question to which I’d like the answer.”

            Nezumi knew he was grinning and didn’t care to stop. Fascinating, this Shion was utterly fascinating. A lunatic, certainly, but only more fascinating for it.

            “Sure.”

            Shion squinted, cocked his head a little, puppy-like. “Sure?”

            “I’m single,” Nezumi confirmed.

            Shion nodded. “Okay.”

            “That’s it? You doing a census? Polling people’s relationship status?” Nezumi leaned forward with each question. Shion was right. Nezumi needed rest. He body was sore, covered in bruises from his countless falls on the ice, his feet blistered.

            “No. I’m attracted to you and wanted to know if my attraction was inappropriate,” Shion replied, and even when Nezumi narrowed his eyes at him, he could detect nothing but seriousness in the figure skater’s features.

            Nezumi stared a moment more. Fascinated, completely fascinated. “It is inappropriate,” he said, after several seconds, giving Shion time to blush, but the man remained composed. “You’re my coach.”

            “We’re the same age.”

            “What if I feel uncomfortable now?”

            “If you do, then I apologize, and I will completely ignore my feelings. But I don’t think you’re uncomfortable,” Shion said, candid as anything.

            “No? What am I, then?” Nezumi thought his attraction to the figure skater stemmed from that winding scar, a curiosity to see where exactly it led, but it could just as easily have been the eyes. Just as easily the hair, or his lips, or that way he smiled, an easy smile, like happiness was his default setting.

            Shion was like a chemical mishap. A mix-up of ingredients, the product of which was someone abnormal, bizarre, sexy, incomprehensible.

            Who smiled like that? Like there was nothing wrong in the world at all? It drove Nezumi crazy. He wanted to feel it. To catch it, a bit of the insanity that must have plagued this figure skater, a taste of the nonsense that must have filled his head.

            Nezumi thought it might be nice to feel a little ignorant bliss of his own, if only for a night.

            “You’re aroused. Your pupils are dilated. You look at me with a lingering gaze. You lean closer to me when we interact. Your body language is open rather than closed off. You have a chemical attraction to me that manifests in your bodily reactions.”

            Nezumi laughed. “You’re conceited, aren’t you?”

            “Am I wrong?”

            Nezumi’s laugh settled on his lips. He felt warm. Warmth was unfamiliar to him, nothing he had ever craved previous to this figure skater, but now he couldn’t get enough.

            It had occurred to him, in the five days, that his fascination in Shion was dangerous. To be avoided. But he had realized fascination was a temporary thing. He could allow himself fun with this figure skater. He could allow himself a healthy dose of greed, a short span of desire, so long as it was nothing more than that.

            And of course it was nothing more than that. A fascination was nothing but that. Shion was cute with an easy smile. Flexible, Nezumi knew. Nothing dangerous. Nothing that mattered. Nothing that Nezumi wouldn’t walk away from later as easily as he leaned forward now.

            “No, you’re not wrong,” he said slowly, and when Shion smiled again, Nezumi was ready for it, knew it was coming, reached out and touched it as soon as it arrived so that he could feel it from the very beginning against the pad of his thumb.

            “You can kiss me,” Shion said, lips moving against Nezumi’s fingertip.

            It was the most ridiculous thing Nezumi had ever heard in his life, but Nezumi kissed the guy anyway, figured words weren’t contagious and a kiss couldn’t harm him – not if Nezumi didn’t let it, and he wouldn’t, wasn’t so foolish as that, wasn’t so fragile as that.

*

Shion didn’t turn the light on in his room, but his eyes adjusted to the darkness so that he forgot it was dark at all.

            He stood in front of Nezumi and undressed. Pulled off his jacket while Nezumi untied his sweater from his waist. Pulled off his t-shirt while Nezumi tugged his hair free from its bun. Toed off his shoes while Nezumi yanked off his undershirt. Unzipped his jeans while Nezumi leaned down to pull off his sneakers. Tucked his thumbs beneath the waistbands of his boxers and jeans while Nezumi stood back up. Pulled off his boxers and jeans and freed his legs from them while Nezumi did the same across from him. Bent back down for his socks while Nezumi copied his movements. Stood up while Nezumi stood up a foot away from him.

            Shion looked at Nezumi, forgetting there were not lights on in his room where they’d decided it was better to have sex than the ballet studio on the outskirts of town that Shion hadn’t known existed until that day.

            Nezumi’s pale skin was freckled in bruises. His legs and arms, a large blotch on his left hip that Shion could pinpoint – gained the day before while they practiced falling, before Nezumi had mastered it, a fall that had him cursing with his eyes narrowed tight, a fall that worried Shion, but Nezumi still had not accepted Shion’s hand, had gotten up off the ice on his own the way he always did.

            Nezumi’s feet were blistered. One bled, the left one, but the blood might have been dried to his skin, Shion couldn’t tell in the dark of his room that didn’t feel dark any longer.

            Nezumi’s fingers were still taped, the forefinger and middle finger of his right hand. He lifted this hand up, tucked his curtain of hair behind an ear, and Shion watched the movement, looked at Nezumi’s face, saw that Nezumi was still examining Shion’s own body, and Shion gave him time to do so.

            Maybe Nezumi’s eyes hadn’t adjusted to the dark of the room. Maybe he couldn’t see at all. Maybe he could see everything and only wanted to look a little longer, and Shion would let him, would let him do anything.

            “Are you sure you want to do this?” Shion asked, even though he knew, could read body language, had read psychology and physiology books even though he didn’t go to college because Safu was reading them, and Shion wanted to know what she knew, always craved knowledge, always craved more.

            “It’s just sex, Shion,” Nezumi said, and he was looking up from Shion’s body now, looking straight into Shion’s eyes now.

            Shion knew it was just sex. What else would it be? What else could it be? What would Nezumi give him, if he asked?

            “I don’t want this to interfere with your training. With your career.”

            Nezumi shook his head. Walked forward. There had been a foot of distance between them as they’d undressed, as they’d looked at each other, but now there was no space at all.

            Shion couldn’t wait for Nezumi to kiss him again. Held his breath for it.

            “If you don’t want to have sex, don’t make excuses on my behalf.”

            “I want to have sex,” Shion said, against Nezumi’s lips. He wondered if this was a kiss. If speaking into lips was something else entirely despite the lip-on-lip contact that a kiss required. It felt different. It felt the same. It felt so warm, so soft.

            “Then what’s the problem?” Nezumi breathed, but his lips were completely against Shion’s, so Shion did not know how he heard him, figured the sound waves had traveled through Shion’s own body, the voice had not touched the air around them but stayed inside the cavern of their bodies, transferred from one man to the other in the most secret exchange.

            _No problem at all,_ Shion thought, but he didn’t say it, couldn’t say it because they were kissing. Nezumi kissed with an open mouth. Hot breath. He kissed like the crash of a wave, something strong and overpowering, tugging him, pulling him, towing him, drowning him. He kissed with galaxies on his lips, slipping stars into Shion’s mouth that he tucked in his cheeks, hoping they’d be there in the morning even when the sun rose and took the rest of the stars away.

            He kissed like it was more than a kiss, like it was more than sex, and Shion had to remind himself that it wasn’t – Nezumi had said it himself, it wasn’t anything more.

            Shion didn’t know why he’d wanted anything more. He didn’t know what more could even be. Could there be more than this? Nezumi’s hand pushing up his chin to deepen the galaxy of their kiss. Nezumi’s fingers slipping into his hair, gripping it softly and then tighter. Nezumi’s palm skating the small of his back like it was his to touch, and Shion tried to think of the last person to touch it, if anyone had ever touched it, how a lower back could feel so intimate a place, so secretive a place with just one gesture.

            Nezumi stepped forward and Shion stepped back. The backs of his legs were against the side of his mattress, and then he was pushed onto it, letting himself be pushed. He was allowed to breathe between Nezumi’s kisses. When Nezumi dropped his lips to Shion’s neck. When Nezumi’s hair tickled the underside of his chin and his shoulders and his chest. His hair was long, and Shion wanted to knot it. Tangle it. Wrap himself in it, get caught in it so they’d have to spend hours the next morning releasing him from its ink. So he’d still be stained with it even after he showered and scrubbed twice at the smudges of it on his skin.

            Shion did not know if Nezumi had had sex before with men he’d only known for five days. He instructed Nezumi on the location of his condoms and lube, the lower drawer of his nightstand, and when Nezumi returned with these items, Shion did not ask how accustomed Nezumi was with these items.

            He did not care if Nezumi had had sex thousands of times. If this was the first time. Nothing in the past mattered to Shion.

            He was allowed to have Nezumi’s body completely in this moment, and Shion took it greedily, was content for the promise of now and no other span of time, was dizzy with it now and maybe even now was far too much time – Shion was overwhelmed with the length of Nezumi’s limbs, the arch of his back, the small sounds Nezumi made in the base of his throat, the hard breaths Nezumi cast onto his lips before he scattered them with a kiss.

            Now was more than Shion had ever anticipated, and Shion gripped the sheets, listened to his mattress creak, felt his pulse shudder against his eardrums. His thighs shook and Nezumi’s hair stuck to his face, his lips, caught in his own eyelashes. Nezumi slipped out of him and laughed, the sound so abrupt and unexpected that Shion nearly climaxed at that moment, at the fumble of Nezumi’s return, at the rock of pleasure that was intoxicating.

            Shion didn’t think he could breathe at several points, but he didn’t care to.

            What was oxygen to Nezumi’s fingers trailing the insides of his thighs? Why did his lungs need air when they could feel the hiss of Nezumi’s curse? What else could sustain life better than the pain of Nezumi’s teeth against his skin?

            Shion had never thought so highly of sex. Was never opposed to it, but now it seemed like something else entirely. He couldn’t think. He didn’t want to. To feel was enough, more than that, too much, but Shion did not know how to stop himself.

*


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry about the wait, i finished this guy up a few days ago, but i was moving to florida so that was hectic and now that we're here there's no wifi yet (i'm currently in starbucks thanks free wifi). but anyway, hope you guys like the chapter! :)

Nezumi was exhausted in the morning, but he was used to working in exhaustion, preferred it that way, and was no less focused as Shion took his hands from the small of Nezumi’s back and the space between Nezumi’s shoulder blades.

            Without the figure skater’s hands, Nezumi promptly fell onto his back on the ice, his breath knocked from his lungs not for the first time that morning.

            “Maybe we should take a break,” Shion said, standing above him with his hand in his hair.

            Nezumi waited until he could breathe again, then shoved himself off the ice. “We just started.”

            “We’ve been at this for two hours.”

            “We never break after two hours. I can do it. Show me again.”

            Shion shook his head, but he skated away, and Nezumi watched him carefully. The figure skater was incredibly graceful on ice. Moved as if he was a part of the ice itself. Nezumi could have watched him for hours, demanded demonstration after demonstration without practicing any of the positions himself and been content to do so.

            It was no surprise that Shion had gold medals. He was something to watch, something that it almost hurt to look away from.

            Shion skated in a large curve. His knees bent, and he lowered down, his back arching as it had the night before, but instead of a bed beneath him there was nothing but a foot of air and then ice. He spread his arms out, his head lifted to the ceiling of the rink, and while Nezumi could not see exactly, he had a feeling Shion’s eyes were closed.

            He held the position – the cantilever, Shion had called it – then straightened up again, kept skating away as if he’d forgotten Nezumi entirely, and Nezumi wouldn’t have minded being forgotten, wouldn’t have minded watching Shion skate on his own for hours. But then Shion was looping back, stopping gracefully in front of Nezumi, who pushed his bangs up from his face.

            They kept escaping his clip.

            “You hold your upper body up entirely with your legs and core,” Shion said, not for the first time.

            Nezumi skated back, then forward again, giving himself momentum as he bent his knees, arched his back.

            “You have to bend your knees more!” Shion called.

            Nezumi did as he was told, but he knew his balance was off, was falling back before he could right himself, this time curling onto his side to avoid having the wind knocked out of him again.

            He pushed himself up and listened to Shion’s skates on the ice, approaching him.

            “I saw you do a position like this at _Swan Lake._ I know you have the core strength for it,” Shion said, extending a hand that Nezumi didn’t take.

            He stood up on his own and rubbed his right elbow. He kept falling on it. He’d have to remember to fall on his other side every once in a while.

            “It’s different on ice,” he said.

            “I know that,” Shion replied, reaching out and touching Nezumi’s arm.

            Nezumi pulled away, skating backwards from him.

            Shion could touch him to place his body into position. Shion could touch him to feel his skin, move his hair aside from his neck in order to press his lips to the space he’d cleared.

            But Nezumi didn’t need Shion touching him to check if he was bruised. Nezumi already knew he was bruised. A bruise was nothing. A bruise would heal.

            “Let’s try it again, then. Lower yourself slowly, I’ll do the same thing beside you, watch me,” Shion said, and so they tried it again.

            Again and again. Hours passed until afternoon appeared, stretched out, settled on the rink in bright streaks of sunlight that nearly made Shion’s hair glow.

            Nezumi liked to look at where the patches of sunlight settled on Shion’s skin. He was looking at a square of light on Shion’s neck as Shion placed his hand on the flat of Nezumi’s stomach, above his t-shirt.

            “Lower down more, your torso should be parallel with the ice.”

            Nezumi’s legs shook. He pressed a hand to the ice below him to prop himself up.

            “Sometimes skaters do the cantilever with a hand on the ice. You don’t have to do it with arms extended. It’s not like you’re in competition, you don’t have to master any of this,” Shion was saying, even though a second before he’d been insisting on getting parallel with the ice, but Nezumi chose not to argue.

            He understood that Shion was used to perfection. That when he coached, he expected the mastery that he himself possessed.

            Nezumi wasn’t going to let himself disappoint the man.

            “Can you lower just an inch more?” Shion asked, and Nezumi did as he was told until he was falling again onto his back.

            Nezumi laid on the ice and looked up at Shion’s face hovering above his, not surprised entirely to see that the figure skater was smiling lightly.

            He smiled easily. All the time. It was so simple to earn his smiles that it wasn’t as if they’d been earned at all, but Nezumi still felt some satisfaction, that odd warmth in his chest.

            “Hi,” Shion said, from above him.

            “Hey,” Nezumi breathed. He closed his eyes. He was exhausted. Should have gotten more sleep the night before, but he’d been kept awake.

            Even after they’d had sex, then once more, Nezumi had trouble sleeping with such a warm body beside his. Shion radiated heat. He was like a furnace, and Nezumi wondered if all people were like him, or if it was just him alone. He seemed like the kind of person to be a rarity. An oddity. An exception.

            “Are you okay?” Shion asked.

            “Great.”

            “We haven’t taken a break today.”

            “I don’t need a break.” Nezumi opened his eyes. Saw that Shion was still watching him. This didn’t surprise him. He had a feeling Shion had watched him the night before as well long after they’d unraveled their bodies from each other, choosing to watch rather than to fall asleep.

            “Okay. Let’s try again,” Shion said, so Nezumi pushed himself back up, stood up and skated away from Shion to shake himself out, returned beside the man to try again.

            Shion gave another demonstration, and Nezumi enjoyed looking at the arch of his back.

            “What about the World Championships?” Nezumi asked, a    question that had been on his mind for some time, as Shion straightened up.

            Shion blinked at him. “What about them?”

            “Aren’t they in March?” Nezumi had done some loose Googling on figure skating competition schedules back when he had only known Shion from the videos his agent had given him. He knew there was some controversy around the World Championship, but hadn’t bothered to look more into it.

            The internet search had bored him quickly. He’d preferred to look at the videos of the figure skater, pause them at certain moments, play them again.

            “They were. There haven’t been World Championships in figure skating since I was a little kid. There was an upswing of skating injuries because the season was so long, and after a few more serious incidents, the FSU decided that the Grand Prix Final would be the culmination championship of each season, and they got rid of Worlds. Standards of figure skating have changed too, since there’s a longer off season. Quads are expected now. They changed the required elements of short and free programs to accommodate the new standards.”

            While Shion spoke, Nezumi skated forward and back then forward again, gliding into the cantilever, lowering himself with each of Shion’s words, tilting his head up to face the roof, watching the ceiling slide by.

            He had a hand on the ice, and contemplated extending it as Shion had, but when he tried he was falling again.

            He got up again. Skated back towards Shion.

            “But like I said, I was a little kid when all of this happened, hardly two years old. There was some controversy, of course, it was a big change in the history of figure skating competitions, but it was done to allow skaters more time to excel without having to worry about practicing their same programs or overworking themselves into injury by trying to do too much in a shorter off season. It didn’t really affect me, since I didn’t know much about figure skating beforehand.”

            “So your mother was in one of the last World Championships,” Nezumi said. He did not actually care about Shion’s mother. He liked when Shion talked. He suspected the man was full of words. He spoke in a straightforward manner, as if he were in a classroom, giving a lesson. As if he were full of facts, full of truths, things Nezumi might never have known existed in his own universe.

            Nezumi wasn’t interested in the history of figure skating, but he could see easily that Shion was. He could see that Shion enjoyed talking about it, or maybe it was that he enjoyed talking about anything at all.

            “No. The one time she qualified for the World Championship after she won gold at the Grand Prix Final, she was a few months pregnant with me, and chose not to compete. She never competed again after I was born.”

            Nezumi had done another cantilever. Lifted his arms again, nearly had them extended, felt himself losing his balance and lowered his hand quickly enough to catch himself, then straightened up without falling.

            “Do you feel guilty?” Nezumi asked, not looking at Shion, skating away from him, practicing other positions – the lunge, the catchfoot with his leg both behind and then in front of him, the spread eagle, and then again the cantilever, this time extending his arms for several seconds before having to stand up again.

            “I have nothing to do with my mother’s decision. It was hers to make.”

            Nezumi had skated back to Shion, who stood where Nezumi had left him, had not moved an inch.

            “Do you think she regrets it?” Nezumi asked, and Shion tilted his head.

            “No, I don’t. Why are you asking all of this?”

            “Maybe I want to get to know you,” Nezumi said, feeling his lips quirk up.

            Shion raised an eyebrow, his hands rising to rest on his hips. “Then you should ask me about me, not my mother. You looked good, by the way. You should still be lower in the cantilever position, but you’ve nearly got it. I think you earned yourself a break. Also, I’m starving.”

            Nezumi felt his smirk widen and shook his head. “Fine, we’ll take a break. I figured you’d have a bit more stamina, you’re not even the one doing most of the work.”

            “Coaching is a lot of work. And it’s good to know when to take breaks. You’re not doing any favors to your body by overworking yourself. You should know when to stop,” Shion replied, using his lecture voice as he led Nezumi off the ice. “Sushi at my apartment?”

            It was a loose routine from the previous five days that Nezumi broke after he checked his phone, found a text from his agent.

            _Meet me at the hotel asap._

            Nezumi fully intended to blow her off, to return to Shion’s apartment, forgo the sushi and fuck him instead, but his phone started ringing as he was about to lower it into his pocket.

            “What?” Nezumi asked, snapping it to his ear.

            “What are you doing?”

            “Talking to you on the phone. What do you want?”

            “Aren’t you supposed to have breaks?” Kiyoko’s voice asked, sounding irritated, as if Nezumi was the one to call her unannounced and ruin her plans to fuck a figure skater.

            “I’m on it right now.”

            “Then get to the hotel, didn’t you get my text?”

            “I’ll be there in five,” Nezumi snapped, hanging up before he could get more annoyed. He glanced at Shion, who was staring at him. “My agent wants to see me.”

            “Oh, all right. I’ll see you back here in an hour then.”

            Nezumi nodded, and they changed out of their skates before heading out, parting ways at the exit of the rink. Nezumi thought about glancing back over his shoulder to watch Shion walk out of view, but decided against it. He tucked his hands into his pockets instead and walked quickly to the hotel where he found his agent instantly, sitting at the bar.

            He slid into a stool next to her.

            “You reek of sweat,” Kiyoko said in greeting, glancing at him quickly.

            “What do you want?”

            “Want a drink?”

            “I’ve still got to get back to training. What do you want?” Nezumi asked again, undoing his clip and pushing his bangs back up, reclipping them.

            “How’s training going?”

            “Was there a point to making me come here?” Nezumi sighed, leaning his elbow on the bar and his hand on his palm.       

            His agent took a sip of her martini from a thin straw. Nezumi glanced at the time on her watch, noted that it was only four in the afternoon.

            “I came to your room last night, and you weren’t there.”

            “So?” Nezumi asked, bored, thinking he should have ignored his agent’s request to meet her, wondering if Shion was at his apartment yet or making small talk with the guy who worked at the sushi place.

            “I told you to find out if Shion was signing the contract.”

            “He is.”

            “You didn’t tell me that.” Kiyoko replaced her glass on the bar and leaned forward.

            “I’m telling you now.”

            His agent leaned even closer, and Nezumi leaned back, unfazed by her calculating stare. “Where were you last night?”

            “Don’t see how it’s your business.”

            “Don’t tell me you were having sex with Shion.”

            Nezumi sighed. It continued to astound him how his agent assumed his personal life was any of her concern.

            “You did!” she shouted, so loudly that a couple at the bar – the only other people there – stared at her.

            “Is there a reason you’re shouting?” Nezumi asked mildly.

            “I cannot believe you had sex with the figure skater in order to get him to sign your contract!” Kiyoko hissed, though she appeared rather delighted.

            “I didn’t.”

            “Not that I’m upset,” Kiyoko said quickly, straightening up and pushing her glasses up her nose. “This is great for your career, trust me, you did the right thing. He signed the contract already? You saw him do it? We’ll have to send for your stuff, and mine as well, though I’ll be going back and forth between here and Tokyo, I have some work to sort out in the city.”

            Nezumi didn’t bother correcting his agent’s ridiculous assumption that he’d bother having sex for a signature. It hardly mattered to him what she thought, and at least now she wasn’t yelling at him for something or another.

            “You know,” Kiyoko said, tracing the rim of her margarita glass, “you could do it again.”

            “Do what again?”

            “Sleep with him. That would be great publicity for the film, you having an affair with the world’s greatest figure skater right before your own figure skating movie. The film would shatter the charts, Nezumi, it’s something to consider.”

            Nezumi lifted his cheek from his palm to stare at his agent fully. “Are you drunk?”

            His agent waved her hand. “Just a little. Just think about it, that’s all. I’m not telling you to fall in love or anything, just an affair, let the tabloids pick it up. It’s even a little scandalous, you’re both men, you know how the country still is with that. Really, I wish I’d thought of this myself, this is genius, your film will blow up before you even start shooting.”

            “You did think of this yourself,” Nezumi reminded slowly. “And I’m not fucking the guy for press, try to get that out of your head.”

            His agent frowned. “What, suddenly you’re Mr. Morality? Give me a break, Nezumi. I know you care about the bottom line, and the bottom line is they won’t even be able to fit the entire figure on your paycheck when word gets out of your affair. This is your chance, kid. You’re going to be huge.”

            “There is no affair. Did you really manage to convince yourself that your ramblings are true in one minute? Maybe you shouldn’t drink the rest of that,” Nezumi advised, reaching out to move his agent’s glass away from her. 

            “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of the press. That’s my job, I’ll make sure they get some good photos – ”

            “Hey, Kiyoko. Listen to me. Stop spewing this nonsense, it’s getting a little irritating,” Nezumi snapped.

            His agent pointed at him. “You’re the one who slept with the guy. I didn’t tell you to do that.”

            “You made that up, remember? When did I say anything like that?”

            “So you didn’t sleep with him?” Kiyoko demanded, squinting at Nezumi, who raised an eyebrow back at her.

            “I have to get back to the rink. And I think it’s time for you to go to bed, you’re being a little neurotic. It’s unbecoming.” Nezumi slid off his stool, wondered if he should help his agent up to her room, but she didn’t appear all that drunk.

            She certainly was acting completely out of her senses, but her gaze was sharp on his when he looked at her.

            “Keep up the good work. This is your shot, Nezumi. I know you like your theater, but film is where the money is. You’ve got talent, and I believe that, I do, I’ve seen your shows. But the big screen is not just talent like the theater is. It’s all publicity and press, and you’ve got the face for it. If you use it right, you’ll be fine.”

            Her words were too sincere, and Nezumi didn’t particularly like the sound of them. He took a step away from her, watched her finally tear her gaze from his. When she reached for the martini Nezumi had moved out of her reach, Nezumi finally turned away from her, left her without turning back.

            Nezumi didn’t care about publicity and press. He didn’t want it. He knew Shion was used to it, had to be used to it, but it wasn’t what Nezumi had ever considered for himself.

            He trusted his agent. She knew more about the film industry than he did. She was probably right about what sold tickets, but that only made Nezumi dread the making of this film even more.

            He felt right in the theater, he felt at ease on stage. Nezumi didn’t know anything about being behind a camera, didn’t know if it was for him, but he didn’t give himself the luxury to choose.

            Film was the better deal, and Nezumi would take it just for that.

*

After practice, Shion followed Nezumi to the ballet studio again, though this time, he walked beside the man.

            Nezumi’s demeanor had changed after he’d come back from meeting his agent for the rest of his lesson, though Shion couldn’t pinpoint how. He contemplated asking Nezumi if something was wrong, was still contemplating when they reached the studio, greeted Nagisa, then let themselves in the back room.

            Shion leaned against the bar and watched Nezumi change his sneakers to ballet flats. The motions of tying them up his leg were quick and graceful as if he’d been doing it for years – and he had, Shion remembered, he’d been doing it since he was seven.

            Nezumi stretched first, sitting with his long legs extended, reaching out past his toes, wrapping his entire hand around the arch of his foot. He bent so low his forehead touched his knees, his spine exposed to Shion but for the thin fabric of t-shirt over it.

            He had a scar on his back. A burn scar, Shion recognized it the night before from Safu’s textbooks he’d borrowed to read. It was large and rigid underneath Shion’s fingertips, and Nezumi had shivered as Shion had touched it, a quick jolt of his body over Shion’s.

            He didn’t offer an explanation, and Shion didn’t ask, just as he didn’t ask about the words Nezumi spoke – shouted, really – once he was asleep.

            Nezumi stood up after five minutes of stretching, approached the bar that Shion leant back against, his arms extended at his sides with his elbows resting on the bar behind him.

            “Want to learn something?” Nezumi asked, and Shion shook his head, dropped his arms from the bar.

            He had always loved to learn, always craved knowledge, but now he felt oddly content being in the dark.

            It was new, for him, but Shion welcomed new things. Welcomed Nezumi, the newest thing in his life, thrilling and incredible, addicting and intoxicating.

            “Then why are you here?” Nezumi asked, lifting his leg so that it was at a straight angle in front of him, resting his calf on the bar where Shion’s elbow had only just been, leaning his body forward so that his chest was against his knee.

            “To watch you,” Shion replied.

            Nezumi exhaled through his smirk, a silent laugh that he offered Shion often. “Already obsessed?”

            “Yes.” Shion didn’t see a reason to lie. He wanted Nezumi to know how deeply he’d fallen. How beautiful the man was, how content Shion was to watch him.

            Nezumi just shook his head. Dropped his leg and lifted the other. His flexibility was familiar to Shion now on an intimate level. Shion knew many positions into which Nezumi could fold himself. Wanted to learn more.

            “Will you sleep over at my place again?” he asked, while Nezumi curved his arms over his head, bent to each side in a slow and lovely arch of movement.

            “Hasn’t anyone taught you the merits of being aloof? Playing hard to get?”

            “Do you want me to pretend not to be interested in you?” Shion asked, and this time Nezumi’s laugh was audible.

            “It’d certainly be a change.”

            “I don’t see the point in pretending not to want what I do.”

            Nezumi glanced at him then, a quick look, indiscernible but enough to shower lightning over Shion’s skin. “I suppose you don’t.”

            “So will you come over?”

            “If you’re going to beg,” Nezumi replied, looking away from him again.

            Shion contemplated the actor. Nezumi, clearly, preferred to be aloof. Hard to get. Uninterested, when Shion knew he was quite the opposite, had the evidence bitten into him, soft marks on his skin that he was eager to add to.

            Nezumi’s behavior interested Shion. He wanted to speculate over it with Safu, break down this man, understand every single thought he had, every action he displayed and even more so, everything he hid.

            Maybe he had a reason to be wary, but Shion didn’t. Shion was glad to be open, give Nezumi everything of himself, show Nezumi that it didn’t have to be hard, it didn’t have to be a bad thing, it didn’t have to be the wrong choice to offer someone everything – even if it felt reckless and rash and much too fast, much too drastic, much too dangerous to be right.

*

Nezumi woke alone in Shion’s bed on Saturday as he had the morning before.

            When he rolled onto his back, the clock on the nightstand said it was half past seven. Nezumi pressed his groan into Shion’s pillow. Shion had light blue sheets. They smelled like him, a smell unidentifiable but that it was undeniably Shion.

            Nezumi pushed himself up from the mattress after he watched three minutes go by on the clock. He dragged himself from the sheets, found his boxers on Shion’s floor and pulled them on, then left the room.

            There were sounds from the kitchen, but Nezumi went to the bathroom. He peed with his eyes closed, washed his face at the sink, stared up at the mirror to watch drops of water fall from his eyelashes and the tips of his bangs. He stole a glob of toothpaste from the tube curled on the sink and pressed it to his teeth with the tip of his uninjured forefinger while he examined his arms and legs, lifting the waistband of his boxers to look at the bruise coloring his hip the purple of a thick sunset.

            Nezumi spat in the sink, rinsed his mouth, left the bathroom, and tied up his hair while he walked into Shion’s kitchen, where the figure skater was at the stove, his back to Nezumi.

            Nezumi liked Shion’s kitchen. It was filled with tiny potted plants. They sat on the stools so that Nezumi could not sit, they cluttered the counter so that a plate could hardly fit, they surrounded the stove and teetered on the edge of the sink and perched on top of the toaster. There were ones with thick leaves, others with small flowers, others like cacti that had been shrunk down when Nezumi hadn’t known cacti to grow anywhere but the desert.

            Shion was humming under his breath, as he had been the morning before. The morning before, he’d made scrambled eggs. It wasn’t eggs today, but something that smelled syrupy, and Nezumi hovered over to the stove to stand beside him, peered over Shion’s shoulder to see that he was making French toast.

            “It’s like a bed and breakfast here,” Nezumi noted, and Shion looked at him, his eyes wide, his smile immediate.

            That easy smile. Instantaneous, like Shion had a store of them prepared, like he slipped them on just for Nezumi.

            Nezumi blinked. What a stupid thought.

            “I didn’t hear you come in here. Hi, good morning.”

            “Morning.”

            “Do you like French toast? I started making them before I remembered you don’t really like sweet things. You can have regular toast if you want, there’s butter and jams in the fridge.”

            Nezumi shrugged. “French toast is fine.”

            Shion just stared at Nezumi, in such an intense way that Nezumi vaguely wondered if the guy was about to suggest having sex again, which Nezumi was fully prepared for despite still feeling half asleep, but then Shion was pointing at his eye.

            “You have eye goop.”

            Nezumi stepped back, rubbed at his eyes. “No, I don’t,” he muttered, turning away from Shion, but he still heard Shion’s laugh, could still picture Shion’s smile – that goddamn smile.  

            “Do you know that you kick in your sleep? I’ll be as covered in bruises as you are if you keep that up,” Shion was saying, as Nezumi rubbed the crust from the corners of his eyes.

            Nezumi glared back at him. “I don’t kick in my sleep.” He had not known this. He’d had no basis to know this, nobody to have told him this.

            He turned away from Shion again, narrowed his eyes instead at the potted plant on one of the stools. It was short and stout with leaves that were fat, but they didn’t look like leaves at all, really.

            Nezumi picked it up and sat down, but there was nowhere to put it. He held it in his hand and scrutinized it.

            “You talk, too,” Shion was saying, turning from the stove and handing Nezumi a plate of French toast that Nezumi took with the hand not holding the plant.

            “What?” Nezumi asked, not having any idea how he was going to eat with his hands full of a plate and a plant.

            “You talk in your sleep,” Shion said, leaning against the stove with his own plate and a fork.

            Nezumi watched him cut his toast with the side of his fork and chew his bite.

            “No, I don’t,” Nezumi said slowly, waiting until Shion had finished chewing to say it.

            Shion just looked at him, then nodded. “Okay. You don’t,” he conceded, and Nezumi narrowed his eyes.

            He had not known he talked in his sleep. He didn’t know what he would have said. He thought he had dreams sometimes, but was never sure what they were on waking, always immediately forgot the moment his eyes opened, though most nights he woke sweating and tangled in his blanket.

            Nezumi thought to ask what he’d said, then decided not to. Shion, clearly, was willing to let it drop, and Nezumi felt grateful for this, unsure why he was grateful, unsure why the thought of his own sleeptalking and of Shion hearing what he’d said was so jarring to begin with in the first place.

            Nezumi looked away from Shion. At his plate in one hand and the potted plant in the other.

            “You don’t have to hold that plant,” Shion said.

            “And where do you suggest I put it?” Nezumi countered.

            “I’ll take it.” Shion held out his hand, and Nezumi gave him the plant, watched Shion look quickly around before placing it on top of his fridge beside three others. “Aren’t you going to ask about them?”

            Nezumi leaned over to take a fork from the drawer beside Shion’s hip and prodded his French toast tentatively. He’d never had French toast before. “Do you want me to?”

            “Only if you’re curious.”

            Nezumi glanced up at the man, who smiled his easy smile around his fork. “What’s with the plants, Shion?”

            Shion lowered his fork and chewed before answering. “A year ago I said in an interview that I liked plants, and people have been sending me succulents ever since.”

            “Succulents,” Nezumi repeated, just to try out the word.

            “Yeah. Succulents. I have to keep them all in here because the window offers the best light in the apartment. Would you like one? I have so many, and I keep getting more. I’m running out of room.”

            “You want to give me one of these plants?” Nezumi asked, staring around at them all. There was a cactus right in front of him. It was fat and round with yellowish spikes. Kind of ugly, in Nezumi’s opinion.

            “It’d honestly be a favor to me. I keep trying to give a few to Safu, but she doesn’t like clutter. I think they’re really cute, but I just don’t have room.”

            Nezumi reached out, picked up the ugly cactus. It looked like a growth rather than a plant.

            “They don’t need much water. It might make your hotel room feel more like home.”

            “A cactus wouldn’t remind me of home,” Nezumi replied, examining the plant closely. He lifted a finger, touched a spike tentatively, was surprised that it was sharp without knowing why he was surprised.

            “What would?”

            Nezumi looked up from the cactus. “What would what?”

            “What would remind you of home?” Shion asked, leaning forward, and Nezumi shrugged the question from his shoulders.

            “Pollution. Noise. Cars. Bright lights,” Nezumi listed, thinking of Tokyo from an outsider’s point of view, from a point of view Shion would accept.

            “Were you born in the city?”

            Nezumi replaced the plant on Shion’s counter. Cut a square out of his French toast with the side of his fork and tried it. Sickly sweet. He didn’t know how Shion, an athlete, could eat something like this for breakfast.

            “We’re sleeping together, it’d be nice to have a little bit of personal information about you, you know,” Shion mumbled after a minute of silence had passed, and Nezumi glanced at him, surprised.

            “We’re not sleeping together.”

            Shion squinted at him. “We’ve had sex two nights in a row.”

            “So?”

            “So we’re sleeping together.”

            Nezumi shook his head, exhaled through his laugh. “Two nights doesn’t mean anything.” He took another bite of his toast before remembering he didn’t like it.

            “How many nights means something?” Shion asked, and Nezumi stared at him.

            “Don’t know,” Nezumi said slowly, watching Shion’s expression carefully and receiving nothing but open curiosity. “But it’s not two. And it’s probably not three either.”

            “How about four?” Shion asked, his smile tugging at his lips, back again, maybe it hadn’t left, Nezumi couldn’t figure out what was making the guy so happy.

            “Doubtful.”

            “Five?”

            Nezumi took another bite of French toast instead of answering, chewed it carefully, thought maybe it wasn’t so terrible after all.

            “Six?” Shion asked, placing his own plate – empty by now – in the sink and stepping towards Nezumi, leaning against the counter and looking down at him.

            “It’s a relief to know you can count, but you can stop at any time now,” Nezumi said, after he took another bite of French toast.

            “What about seven? If I sleep with you for seven nights, what does that mean?” Shion asked, leaning closer still, he was going to prick himself on his cactus if he kept that up.

            Nezumi licked his fork, smirked at the man. “Means you had a pretty good week.”

            Shion’s laugh was open-mouthed. His breath smelled of maple syrup. Nezumi had a strong feeling that his lips would taste like French toast, and he looked down at his plate, saw that he’d finished his toast, thought he still craved the taste that maybe he loved after all, one more bite would do it, nothing more than that.

            “I think I should tell you just so you don’t think it’s just sex. I like you, Nezumi,” Shion said, his eyes still crinkled from his laughter even though the sound had stopped.

            Nezumi licked his lips. Hadn’t kissed the man and couldn’t now.

            Instead, he stood up. Walked around Shion and placed his plate in the sink. Ran the water and let his hands linger under it, accidentally soaking the Band-Aids around his fingers, but he needed to change them anyway.

            “Has it occurred to you that you shouldn’t say everything you feel all the time?” Nezumi asked the sponge in his hands, sudsy when he squeezed it.

            “Why shouldn’t I?”

            “If you go around handing everyone every truth you’ve got, you’ll have nothing left for yourself. You might get hurt, being so careless.”

            “By you?” Shion asked, and Nezumi glanced at him. “Are you going to hurt me?”

            Nezumi listened to the sink running. Didn’t look away from Shion. “At the rate you’re going, it’s seeming a little inevitable.”

            Shion didn’t smile. He just looked at Nezumi like Nezumi was the one to be scrutinized, to be analyzed, like Nezumi was the one saying things that had no business being said. “I don’t think I’d mind that so much,” he finally said.

            Nezumi shook his head. Turned back to the dishes. “You’re pretty stupid, you know.”

            “I disagree,” Shion said, as if it were an argument, but it wasn’t.

            It was the truth. The figure skater was an idiot. Careless and rash. Naïve and trusting. But Nezumi had warned him, and if Shion wasn’t going to take a hint, Nezumi couldn’t be to blame.

            If Shion got hurt, it’d be his own fault, and Nezumi would have nothing at all to do with it.

            After they did the dishes, they showered together to save time and fucked because there wasn’t a reason not to. Maybe now Nezumi knew that to Shion it wasn’t just sex, but Shion knew that to Nezumi it was – he had to know, of course he knew, he was an idiot but had some sense, and it wasn’t like Nezumi told him anything otherwise, it wasn’t like Nezumi gave up some ridiculous confession in reply to Shion’s.

            If Shion still wanted to have sex, Nezumi wasn’t going to object. The guy was a grown man. He could make his own bad decisions, and Nezumi wasn’t about to step in and stop him.

            They dressed and were leaving Shion’s apartment when Shion stopped Nezumi at the door with a hand on Nezumi’s sleeve.

            “Did you want the cactus?”

            “Why would I want that?” Nezumi asked.

            “You can have it if you do.”

            “I don’t.”

            “Are you sure?” Shion asked, like Nezumi was on the fence about an ugly plant.

            “Yeah, I’m sure,” Nezumi said, trying not to roll his eyes.

            “If you change your mind, it’s yours,” Shion said, too earnestly, like he was talking about something other than a plant, but there was nothing else to talk about, nothing else Nezumi could change his mind about.

            Nezumi chose not to reply, freed his sleeve from Shion’s loose grip and led him out of his apartment building and down a block to the rink, where they changed into their skates silently before stepping onto the ice.

            It was Nezumi’s seventh day on ice, but as he glided around the rink to warm up, he felt as though he’d been skating for years. And when Shion shouted to him from across the rink to pay attention to his demonstration, Nezumi felt as though he’d been listening to the figure skater call out his name for no less than a lifetime.

*

Sunday made a full week since Shion had first met Nezumi in his mother’s bakery. After waking up at Shion’s apartment that morning, the actor had returned to Tokyo to collect more of his belongings. Shion had spent the morning meeting with Nezumi’s agent to submit a copy of the signed contract, binding him as Nezumi’s coach for the following five months.

            “The contract stipulates that you’ll only be training Nezumi three days a week from now on,” Safu said, flipping a page of Shion’s stapled copy from her perch on the edge of Shion’s bed.

            Shion had not seen or spoken to his best friend in the week since Nezumi had been in town. He didn’t think he’d ever gone such a long span of time out of contact with her, and felt guilty for it. His friendship with Safu was more important than any other relationship – or lack of relationship, as it would be.

            “I know. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday,” Shion replied, looking up from the book on leg injuries Safu had brought him from her clinic. He was sitting on the floor, leaning back against his dresser with clean clothes beside him he was meant to be folding. “Did you see this photo of the snapped Achilles’ heel? Look,” Shion said, holding the book open and up to his friend, who did not look.

            “Saw one in person on Tuesday. I would have texted you to come in and see it, but I knew you’d be with the actor,” Safu said, and Shion didn’t miss the inflection of her tone.

            He closed the clinic book. “I know I’ve been an awful friend since he’s been here. I’m sorry.”

            “You’re not allowed to teach him jumps either,” Safu continued, flipping another page of the contract as if Shion hadn’t spoken.

            Shion stood up, joined his friend on the bed, sitting so close to her their sides touched until Safu scooched away from him, but he just closed the gap she made.

            “Forgive me, forgive me,” he insisted.

            “Apparently, the actor could be injured, and it’s not worth the risk. So there won’t be jumps in this film? That won’t be accurate if the movie is going to feature programs approved by the standards of the FSU. I suppose they could have a stunt double.”

            “If you forgive me, I’ll tell you a secret,” Shion said, nearly on top of his friend at this point.

            Safu finally looked up from the contract. “You’re sitting on me.”

            “I’ve been away from you for so long, I can’t get close enough,” Shion replied, a grin pulling at the edges of his lips.

            Safu shook her head, but she was smiling when she pushed Shion away from her.

            Shion allowed it, lifted his legs onto the bed completely and sat cross-legged, pivoting to face his friend fully.

            “You don’t have secrets from me.”

            “I know. I hate it. I wanted to tell you, but I wanted to tell you in person, and I didn’t get a chance to see you all week.”

            “If I recall, you were only coaching the actor ten hours a day, and there’s twenty-four hours in a day. Take eight to sleep, though I knew you never sleep more than six, and there’s still six hours left over. Does it take six hours to tell a secret, Shion?” Safu asked, leaning closer to Shion, who bit his lip.

            “The thing is, I haven’t really had six hours a day to myself, or any hours, really, since Thursday.”

            “What does that mean?”

            “It’s part of the secret,” Shion whispered, his heart beating quickly, his skin a little electrified, and Nezumi wasn’t even in the room, he wasn’t even close by.

            Safu’s expression shifted, more serious now, a little concerned in the narrow of her eyes, and she pivoted to face Shion as well. “What’s the secret, Shion?”

            Shion took a breath. He felt like a child admitting a crush, but he was twenty-five years old, and it was more than a crush. “I’m falling for Nezumi,” he said slowly, unsure how to word what he felt – which was everything.

            Safu made no reaction but to ask – “Romantically?”

            Shion nodded. He wasn’t sure that there was another way to fall. “And we’re having sex.”

            At this, Safu leaned back. “You and Nezumi?”

            “Yes.”

            “You’re having sex with Nezumi?”

            Shion chewed on the inside of his cheek, released the thick flesh to speak. “Yeah. Yes.”

            “As in, not just in your fantasies?”

            Shion laughed and groaned, pitching forward to hide his face, rising up slowly. “Yes, Safu. On this very bed. Since Thursday. He’s been sleeping over.”

            Safu held out a hand. “Just to clarify. You have been having sex with the actor you’re training to figure skate for,” Safu paused, and Shion watched her count on her fingers, “three nights.”

            “That is correct,” Shion replied, almost preferring the clinical way in which Safu questioned him, like he was a patient at her clinic and she was asking him to confirm the symptoms she listed.

            He wouldn’t mind a diagnosis. He wouldn’t mind a cure.

            “And you’re falling in love with him.”

            Shion nodded. “Yes.”

            “But…” Safu shook her head, and Shion could see her confusion in the crease between her eyes. “Are you dating?”

            “No, I don’t think so. It’s just physical.”

            “Other than your romantic feelings.”

            “Right. We don’t even kiss during the day, or anything like that, relationship things like that. I don’t think he wants anything more,” Shion said, and he heard the drop of his own voice, watched Safu’s confusion soften.

            “Realistically, Shion, you’ve only known him for a week.”

            Shion nodded. Pressed his hand over his eyes. “I know. I know it doesn’t make sense. But, Safu,” he dropped his hand, looked at his friend closely, wanted her to understand with the clarity he did, “I know what I feel. I’ve never been so drawn to anyone, I’ve never felt the need to be near someone the way I do Nezumi. It’s not just a physical attraction. That would make sense, that I could rationalize, but it’s more than that. There’s this – warmth, when I’m near him. I love to talk to him. I love when he laughs. I love when he looks at me, or even just says my name. I know I don’t know him, but I feel as if I do, this week has felt like a lifetime to me, longer than that. How does that make sense? How can I feel this way?”

            He wanted answers. Here was his best friend, the smartest person Shion knew. She would have answers, she had to have answers.

            She watched Shion carefully, and he was glad for her scrutiny. Wanted her to treat him like a patient at her clinic. Something to be dissected, examined, solved.

            When Safu spoke, it wasn’t a diagnosis. It was a question. “What is he like?”

            Shion blinked. “What?”

            “The actor. Nezumi. I don’t know him, I only met him that one time last Sunday. What is he like?”

            Shion tried to think. Shook his head, running through a list of adjectives and thinking none could come close to describing the actor. “He’s…He’s indescribable.”

            Safu smiled lightly. “Try, for my sake.”

            Shion looked at his lap. Picked at a thread unraveling from his sock. “He’s like the night sky. He’s beautiful, and quiet. And he has secrets, a lot of them, I think, but he’s good at hiding them, prefers to hide them. And there’s a darkness there, too. It’s not that he’s mean, but I don’t think he’d hesitate to be cruel. I don’t think he’d find it difficult to be cold.”

            Shion peeked up at Safu, who watched him without expression, who never made Shion feel foolish for what he thought or said, and he was so grateful for this.

             “And I could look at him for hours and forget that time has passed at all. I want to reach out and touch him, but sometimes it feels like I’ll never reach him, and if I ever do, that I’ll burn myself on his stars.”

            Safu didn’t say anything for several seconds, and then she spoke quietly. “That was really beautiful, Shion.”

            Shion shook his head, pressed his fingers to his temples. “I know it doesn’t make sense.”

            Safu shrugged. “Maybe I can’t understand it, but I don’t think I’ve ever been in love. But can I ask you something? Does he make you happy?”

            Shion dropped his hand from his temples. Looked at his friend. “I don’t know if it’s happiness, really. It’s like, it’s like he makes me full, like when I’m near him I feel like I’m overflowing.”

            “With what?” Safu asked, watching Shion carefully.

            “I don’t know. It’s a warm feeling, though, whatever it is. It’s something good, I know it. It has to be.”

            They sat in silence for several seconds, maybe a minute, before Safu spoke again. “But your relationship is just physical.”

            Shion exhaled deeply. “Nezumi won’t be clear about it – he’s rarely clear about his own feelings – but I don’t think he’s interested at all in relationships. And it almost feels safer this way. I’m worried I’m feeling too much too quickly. It can’t be normal. Can it?”

            Safu smiled wanly. “I wouldn’t know.”

            “I suppose I have nothing to feel upset about. I get to see him every day. Well, three days a week now, we’re contractually obliged. And I know he enjoys having sex with me. That’s enough. More than enough. Especially when I’ve only known him a week. If anything, I’m probably overwhelming him,” Shion rationalized.

            “You told him how you feel?”

            “Not in terms of a night sky,” Shion said, smiling slightly, “but he knows that I like him.”

            “But he hasn’t reciprocated your sentiments.”

            “Not exactly, no,” Shion said, thinking of Nezumi in his kitchen telling him not to be so careless with his words.

            “But you’re not sad about that,” Safu was saying, and Shion was taken out of his kitchen, out from under Nezumi’s gaze.

            “What?”

            “You’re smiling,” Safu accused. “Isn’t unrequited love supposed to be painful?”

            Shion did not feel as if anything hurt. He wasn’t upset. He hadn’t expected Nezumi to respond in kind when he’d admitted his own feelings.

            Who fell in love after a week? Nobody was that foolish. Nobody had that reckless of a heart.

            “I guess I don’t mind so much. It’s not like we don’t have time. He doesn’t have to fall in love with me right now.”

            Safu laughed. “Just at some point in the future.”

            Shion felt himself laughing as well. “The near future would be nice,” he agreed.

            Safu slid closer to Shion until she was no longer across from him, but beside him. She leaned against his shoulder. Shion could feel her movements when she shifted, when she spoke. “You know, you’re a catch. Nezumi would be lucky to fall in love with you.”

            Shion leaned his head on top of his friend’s, the soft of her hair familiar against the side of his cheek. He closed his eyes and thought about what it might feel like, if Nezumi fell in love with him.

            The thought was so incredible Shion almost forgot to breathe.

*

Nezumi did not go to his apartment when he got into the city.

            He went straight to his ballet studio, open only for the cast of The New National Theatre, and was relieved to find very few people in it – no one from any of his productions.

            He changed into leggings and a t-shirt, laced up his ballet shoes, stretched, then stood in front of a mirrored wall and lifted himself slowly onto the flats of his toes in a pointe position.

            He held the pose for as long as he could until it hurt, then held it still. He examined his form in the mirror, couldn’t find a flaw in it. It was impossible to tell from his own features that he was in pain. It was impossible to see that he struggled to balance on the tips of his toes for a minute, then two minutes, then three.

            Nezumi breathed slowly. Watched his expression. Watched his chest rise and fall evenly with his breaths.

            He had spent the train ride thinking of Shion. He spent more time than he preferred to admit thinking of Shion. At that moment, he wondered where Shion was, what he was doing, whom he was with.

            When Nezumi closed his eyes, he imagined Shion was at the rink. Skating in slow figure eights, nothing else, just a pattern of curves over and over. Nezumi wanted to be in that rink with him. Waiting for Shion to stop skating. Waiting for Shion to call over to him, tell him what they were going to work on next.

            Nezumi was not used to thinking of other people, of anyone, really, but himself. To have his head so full of someone else was a startling thing, a strange thing. He didn’t want these thoughts, but he didn’t know where to put them. He tried to exhale them out of him. Thought if he could get every inch of air out of his lungs, Shion would leave along with his breaths, and he’d be free of the man who terrified him.

            There was the benefit in that Nezumi knew better than to act on his thoughts. Better than to spew them at any whim, confess them in the early morning with maple syrup on his lips. Nezumi knew the best course of action was to rid himself of them, and if he couldn’t, then to ignore them. He knew that they were temporary, had no doubt that they were temporary because everything was temporary.

            There were no thoughts that stayed, and no people that stayed, and for these reasons Nezumi reminded himself he had no reason to worry.

            Now, in this moment, there was Shion, a lot of Shion, an overflowing amount of Shion, and Nezumi would be victim to that, would think about the figure skater when he couldn’t fathom the reason for it, couldn’t figure out the cause.

            Now, Nezumi would want to be beside him, would count down the hours until the next day when he would be in Shion’s town again, in Shion’s rink again, by Shion’s side again.

            Now, Nezumi would crave the man like he was some sort of necessary thing, when he wasn’t, Nezumi knew better than that, knew so much more than that.

            Now, Nezumi would want him, but it would fade. He had never wanted the way he did now, and Nezumi was unused to want, had lived a life of need and satisfaction of that need and to want was something else entirely, a luxury he’d never thought he’d have the time to feel.

            Now, Nezumi would endure this luxury, let it fill him if it refused to be exhaled out of him, let it warm him if it wouldn’t budge from the lines of his pulse.

            But later – soon, Nezumi was certain, it couldn’t last long – this strange draw to the figure skater would lessen, more and more until it wasn’t anything at all, and Nezumi was relieved that there was at least this one certainty, this promise of his want diminishing, dissipating, disappearing.

            After four minutes in the pointe position, Nezumi nearly fell, his feet numb, his toes protesting, but he stumbled and caught himself, resisted the urge to rip off his ballet shoes and examine the damage he’d done to his feet.

            He lowered himself slowly to the floor, peered up at himself in the mirror, and found that his face was pale, his eyes wide, and for a moment, Nezumi could not recognize himself at all.

*


	4. Chapter 4

Shion had not expected to see Nezumi until Monday when their lessons would resume, but the actor arrived at Shion’s apartment late Sunday night, knocking lightly in a way that had Shion looking up from the pages of his book, unsure if the sound was only in his head or not.

            Safu had only left an hour before Nezumi’s arrival, and now it was several hours after Shion had stood up from his couch, made his way to his front door, and opened it to find Nezumi looking windswept and beautiful.

            Now, Nezumi was undressed and asleep beside Shion, who was not sleeping only because Nezumi’s voice had woken him.

            “Mom?”

            Shion propped himself up by his elbows. He was exhausted. Nezumi did not allow him to sleep much, and this would be the fourth night of the man’s restless limbs, murmured words, agitated nightmares.

            They were nightmares, Shion had concluded, because Nezumi’s sleep-muffled voice sounded terrified.

            “Dad?”

            Nezumi’s feet jerked. They were uncovered from the blanket that was wrapped tightly around the actor’s torso and waist, the tops of his thighs. His uncovered feet were wrapped in bandages that hadn’t been there any of the nights previous.

            Shion had not asked Nezumi about them when he’d noticed the bandages undressing the man hours earlier. He’d said nothing, because Nezumi’s lips were on his, and it was hard to speak with the warmth of the sun exhaled into his mouth.

            “Where are you?”

            Shion reached out. Nezumi’s hair was a tangled mess around his face, sticking to his cheeks, a few strands wrapped so tightly around his neck Shion worried for his airways. Shion was gentle as he shifted the strands. Freed the pale skin of the man whose lips moved, soundless for a moment until his voice slipped out again.

            “Mom – Mom!”

            Nezumi’s hands tightened around the sheet over the bed. Shion touched his knuckles, the white of them.

            He did not wake Nezumi because he was selfish. This was not a trait Shion had ever thought to describe himself with, had ever known he possessed, but he’d realized it in the nights that Nezumi slept beside him.

            Shion was selfish. He wanted more of Nezumi’s words. He wanted to know where Nezumi’s mother was, where his father was, if they would ever reply to his terrified calls.

            After the first night, Shion had conducted extensive research on Nezumi online, but there was nothing about his parents or background or anything, really, but a list of his previous productions and a few news articles on the fact that Shion was now his coach, though most articles were features on Shion and did not even mention Nezumi’s name at all, referred to him only as _the actor_.

            There were no interviews of Nezumi, no comments on him made by his managers or coworkers in Tokyo. There were few photographs, and the few there were distracted Shion from his search, as he became fascinated instead by how different Nezumi looked when he was captured on camera.

            There was a coldness about him. Stillness did not suit him. Did not reveal the curve of his lips, did not reveal the flicker of his eyelashes, did not reveal the softness of his features that was brought about only by the early morning.

            “Answer me, you have to – Mom? Dad?”

            Nezumi’s voice did not sound the same when it reached out from a nightmare. It was soft and small, the voice of a child. Shion leaned closer to hear it over Nezumi’s quick breaths. They were hot over his face, his lips and chin.

            “Please, please, where are you? I’m here, I’m here…”

            Nezumi said the same things every night. Shion wondered if he’d had this same nightmare every night of his life. Wondered if Nezumi was ever found before he woke. Wondered if he was still lost when the morning came, wondered if that was why his features were so soft, his eyes wider and cloudier than an hour or so after waking, when the grey would turn sharp again, the softness gone, the vulnerability covered until the next night.

            “Is anyone there?”

            _I am,_ Shion thought, but he didn’t say it. He watched as Nezumi shifted against the mattress, stilling slowly, his hands loosening from the bedsheets, his legs coming to rest.

            Nezumi was silent, then, his breaths evening out, and Shion knew the nightmare was over, a brief thing. He glanced at the clock, saw that it’d only lasted around five minutes.

            He wondered how long it had felt to Nezumi, tricked by his unconscious.

            Shion settled back beside the man. Shifted closer to him, resuming the pose in which he’d fallen asleep in the first place – burrowed into Nezumi’s body, the curve of his tall frame perfect for Shion’s own folded limbs.

            Nezumi’s skin was always hot, even damp with sweat, but Shion craved the heat, was left blanket-less by this man and thought it only right if he received Nezumi’s body heat in return.

            He pressed himself tightly to Nezumi and felt as the man shifted closer to him as well, still asleep but with reaching arms, grappling fingers that took hold on Shion’s hips and sides.

            Nezumi was an active sleeper, impossible to sleep beside, but Shion would eagerly spend every remaining night of his life without proper sleep if it allowed him the heat of this man, plastered against him in a second skin.

*

Nezumi’s training on the ice continued every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and he passed the afternoons of these days in the ballet studio. He spent off days learning his script, heading to Tokyo most of these days to meet with his new cast mates and director, to read through lines and learn his new role.

            He returned to Shion’s town every night to knock on Shion’s apartment door, to be let in by the man whose surprise faded day after day until Nezumi knew he was expected to return at nights, until Shion was handing Nezumi a key on the first of March, a month and a half after they’d been sleeping together.

            Now, Nezumi would concede, they were sleeping together. During the day, Shion was his coach. They did nothing but train, eating together only when Shion made breakfast in the mornings and then during their allotted one-hour break, and it was always sushi from the place beside Shion’s apartment building.

            Nezumi did not take Shion out to dinner because they were not dating. They were not in a relationship outside that of coach and trainee. They did not talk about it because there was no need to.

            Nezumi’s new life was exhausting, full of commutes and late nights, straining his body past what it was used to and glad to do so.

            Being exhausted was all he knew and all he wanted. Sex with Shion helped; the man had incredible stamina, left Nezumi loose-limbed and breathless every night, and to fall asleep became easier than it ever had.

            Nezumi didn’t know why he had trouble falling asleep, but there had always been a sense of dread he associated with unconsciousness. He sometimes suspected he had nightmares, but none he could remember, and nightmares were for children anyway. They were ridiculous imaginings of the mind, nothing Nezumi would entertain.

            Since Shion, falling asleep was easier. A lot was easier, but Nezumi didn’t analyze it.

            It was temporary, a relationship based on a contract, on lessons and sex and nothing else, and Nezumi didn’t kid himself.

            The key he kept in his wallet was not his to keep, but a loan, and Nezumi wouldn’t have it any other way.

*

Shion’s mother did not want him attempting a quad axel, and so Shion could only practice it when she wasn’t coaching him.

            By mid-April, Karan had started coaching Shion on his new routines on the days when he wasn’t coaching Nezumi, allowing Sunday as an off day until it got closer to the season. This left the afternoons of Saturday, Tuesday, and Thursday, as well as all of Sunday, for Shion to practice his quad axel.

            “The reason you have an off day is so you don’t strain yourself,” Safu said, a second after Shion fell on the ice.

            He picked himself up, looked around the rink before spotting his friend near the entrance, walking closer.

            “I’m not tired,” Shion said, which was a lie.

            He was always tired, with Nezumi stealing his sleep, but he didn’t mind the fatigue. It reminded him of the weeks before competition, the weeks when Shion trained hardest, did his best work.

            “Don’t make me tell your mother you’re attempting the quad axel.”

            “You won’t,” Shion said, skating over to meet Safu, who’d arrived at the edge of the rink.

            Safu squinted at him. “I might. You’re pushing yourself too hard.”

            “I feel great, Safu.”

            “There’s no quad axel in your routine, where are you going to put it?”

            “I’ll replace the second quad loop.”

            “That’s your last jump,” Safu accused, her hands on her hips.

            Shion didn’t reply. He knew that.

            “You’ll be too exhausted to pull that off! Shion, try to think clearly. Is this because of Nezumi?”

            Shion stared at his friend. “What? What does this have to do with Nezumi?”

            Safu exhaled hard. “This is reckless and stupid. If you’re going to do a quad axel, you need to do it during the first half of your program. It’s hard enough to pull off, you really want to do it when you’ve spent nearly all of your energy?”

            Shion pushed his hair off his forehead, felt that it was wet with sweat. “But what does this have to do with Nezumi?”

            “I’m not sure, but you certainly weren’t this stupid before, and the only changed factor in your life that I can detect is Nezumi,” Safu said, her tone clipped.

            “It’s not stupid. Just because no one has done a quad axel in competition before doesn’t make it impossible or dangerous. There’s always a first for every new jump.”

            “If you do the quad axel in the second half, I’ll tell Karan.”

            “Safu, please, don’t.”

            “Do it in the first half.”

            “Safu – ”

            “Promise me you will, Shion. You’ve got bags under your eyes. I’ve been watching you – I’m a doctor, you know, and a good one. I can tell you’re working yourself too hard. You’re going to burn out at this rate, or injure yourself.”

            Shion thought about the bruises on his sides and legs that had been blooming since he’d started teaching himself the quad axel. He wasn’t used to training himself, especially a jump with no video reference. Nezumi had pointed out to Shion that they’d switched places one night, tracing his long fingers on the edges of a purple cloud over Shion’s knee.

            “You’re the one with the bruises now,” he’d said, watching Shion carefully, and Shion had not understood at first, had looked at Nezumi’s body again and realized the actor was not bruised at all, hadn’t been for a few weeks, no longer fell during their training but excelled.

            Nezumi had gotten used to spins a month before, and now spent lessons mastering what he already knew rather than learning anything new.

            “I have to push myself in order to excel, Safu,” Shion said, meeting his friend’s eye, but he knew her determination well, knew she was as stubborn as he, even more so.

            “If you don’t promise it’ll be in the first half, I’ll tell your coach. Karan won’t let you do it. You shouldn’t be disobeying her in the first place, she knows what she’s doing, she knows this is too dangerous.”

            “Things have changed since my mother figure skated,” Shion argued.

            “If Karan doesn’t think you’re able to do a quad axel, I agree with her. I’m only allowing you to get away with it because you’re my best friend, and you seem sure of this, and I don’t want to doubt you. But I can only allow this if I don’t think you’re being completely careless,” Safu insisted.

            Shion bit the inside of his cheek. He knew Safu was serious. If she told his mother, he was certain Karan would make sure he had no time to practice the quad axel on his own, and he’d be unable to master it.

            He released his cheek. “Okay.”

            “Okay, what?”

            “I promise I’ll put the quad axel in the first half.”

            “Where?”

            “I’ll replace the quad Salchow.”

            “Replace the Lutz.”

            “Safu – ”

            “Fine, fine. You promise?” Safu demanded, leaning closer, and Shion nodded.

            “I promise,” he agreed, and he knew as he spoke the words that it would be the first promise to his best friend that he would ever break.

*

The third Tuesday in April was the first day Nezumi did not have to go to Tokyo on a day off from training with Shion.

            A text from his agent told him they’d be rehearsing a scene he wasn’t in, and therefore he was given the day off. Nezumi only saw the text after waking alone in Shion’s bed, blinking at the words and realizing they meant he was allowed to go back to sleep.

            He slumped back down, rolling over to inform Shion to find that the mattress was empty. This should not have been surprising. Shion’s mother was a baker, used to waking early, and therefore had Shion wake early as well to start his days of training.

            Nezumi closed his eyes, tried to fall back asleep for no more than five minutes, then gave up on the task and got out of bed, taking a quick shower before grabbing an apple from Shion’s fridge and heading out.

            He intended to go to the ballet studio, but instead found himself at the rink. He tossed his apple core in the trash outside and let himself in to the familiar sound of skates on ice, and then there was a voice he recognized, though only vaguely.

            “You’re rushing the step sequence, hon, you’ve got time.”

            Karan stood in the center of the rink. Shion was skating around her in a large curve, his hand in his hair.

            “I know, I know,” Shion said, as Nezumi closed the door of the building gently behind him, careful not to let it make a sound.

            Shion’s words were frustrated, almost angry in a way that was unfamiliar to Nezumi. He stepped forward, intrigued, making his way to the bench at the side of the rink where he and Shion sat beside each other, lacing up their skates before every lesson.

            “It’s not enough to know it. You’ve been skating it too fast the last three times – ”

            “I know!” Shion shouted, and Nezumi watched him shake his head. “Sorry.”

            “Just skate it again,” Karan said, her voice less gentle than Nezumi recalled, but he didn’t have many encounters with the woman.

            He’d gone into the bakery only once after the first day, and even then it was only briefly to accompany Shion during one of their lunch breaks and pick up an order of scones for the guy who worked at the sushi place.

            From what he knew, Karan was a soft woman, and Nezumi liked her.

            On the ice, however, she seemed much sterner, but Nezumi could understand this. She was not a baker nor a mother at this moment, but a coach.

             Nezumi was at the bench now, and sat to watch Shion skate around the ice, his movements streamlined and graceful, slipping in and out of positions that Nezumi was mostly familiar with, though there were some he had not been taught. Shion did spins Nezumi did not know, and of course, Nezumi didn’t know any of the jumps, of which Shion did four.

            He was incredible. Nezumi did not know much about figure skating, but he’d been watching more competitions online, videos of skaters from around the world that he could compare with the videos of Shion he’d watched countless times.

            There were many talented skaters, but Nezumi, despite his general lack of figure skating knowledge, could easily understand why Shion was considered the best in the world.

            Nezumi realized he had not seen Shion skate in person outside of their lessons, and then it was only in demonstration. He had never seen Shion’s jumps so up close, heard how loud his skates were against the ice, saw the grace of his movements and witnessed the concentration of his expression at such a range.

            It was difficult not to feel the pump of his heart as if it were far larger than it was meant to be.

            “That was much better, that’s the time you’re striving for,” Karan was saying, while Shion ended his step sequence and pulled his leg up in a catchfoot position.

            He dropped his leg, skated across the ice, then lifted up into the air, a jump Nezumi had no knowledge of but that it had more rotations than he was expecting, looked incredible and impossible.

            “Your legs need to be – ”

            “Tighter, I know, I felt myself slipping,” Shion said, after his jump, and Nezumi didn’t know how either Karan nor her son could have found any imperfection in the jump, but knew figure skating was much like ballet – anything less than perfect was blatant to an expert.

            “You should have your flip jump down by now. It’s nearly May, I don’t understand why you’re so sloppy.”

            “I know, Mom,” Shion said, his voice strained on impatience as he pulled into a position Nezumi couldn’t name, though it was familiar to him from the videos he’d watched.

            “Is something going on?”

            “No.”

            “Is it coaching Nezumi?”

            Nezumi sat up straighter. Neither Karan nor Shion seemed to have noticed him yet, and they had no reason to. Shion was concentrated on his routine, and his coach wasn’t taking her eyes off of him.

            “Mom.” Shion’s irritation was obvious. Nezumi wondered how many times they’d had this conversation.

            “Honey, you don’t need to get mad. I’m just trying to understand, as your coach. This isn’t like you.”

            “I’ll get it! I’ll be fine, it’s only April!”

            “It’s the end of April.”

            “Mom, I told you I’d get it! You were the one who told me to coach him anyway, remember? You said it was a good idea, and you got Safu on your side to convince me, so you can’t just turn around and go blaming Nezumi for this – ”

            “Shion, I’m not blaming anyone. You seem more tired than usual, and I want to understand – ”

            Shion stopped skating abruptly, facing his mother in a skid of ice. “None of this is Nezumi’s fault. I only coach him three days a week, I can handle it. I signed a contract. I’m his coach, I’m not going to back out of it because you don’t think I can handle it alongside my own training. I know I can do it, and I could really use your support, as my coach and my mother.”

            Karan had her hands on her hips. “I will support you in anything you do, you know that. But as both your coach and your mother, I have to make sure that what you’re doing is what is best for you, what is making you happiest.”

            Shion skated towards his mother. Stopped in front of her. Nezumi rarely saw Shion interact with his mother, found it fascinating without knowing why.

            “I’ve never been happier in my entire life, Mom,” he said quietly.

            Nezumi stood up. He was going to leave, forgot why he’d come here in the first place, but before he could turn from the rink, Shion was turning his head, eyes locking on his.

            “Nezumi.”

            Nezumi took a breath. Held it. Let it out slowly. “Shion.”

            He watched Shion skate over to him, his mother apparently forgotten. Shion stopped at the wall of the rink, but Nezumi stayed where he was, did not step closer to it, was glad it divided them.

            “Hey. What are you doing here?”

            Nezumi shrugged. “Dunno.”

            Shion’s head was tilted. There was sweat along his hairline, a bead dripping down on the left side of his face. Nezumi knew the taste of his sweat, salty and warm. “But why aren’t you in Tokyo?”

            “Oh. I have the day off, they’re rehearsing a scene I’m not in.”

            “So you’re in town all day?”

            “Guess so.”

            “Want to do something?” Shion asked, and Nezumi squinted at him.

            He had no idea what Shion meant by _something._

            “Aren’t you in training right now?”

            “I have a break,” Shion said, and before Nezumi could reply, he was turning to glance over his shoulder. “Mom, can I take my break now?”

            Karan stood still for a moment, then skated over slowly. “Sure, hon, if you’d like. Hello, Nezumi.”

            Nezumi rubbed the back of his neck, then dropped his hand and nodded. “Karan.”

            “I hope if you overheard mine and Shion’s conversation, you don’t think I’m accusing you at all for – ”

            “No, I don’t. It’s fine, really, I know you didn’t mean anything about me,” Nezumi said quickly, and he received a smile that softened the woman’s features into the baker he’d met his first day in this town.

            “How is your training going? Shion tells me you’re a quick learner.”

            “He’s a good coach. Must have gotten it from you.” Nezumi liked the way Karan’s eyes crinkled with her smile. It reminded him of Shion.

            “I’ll let you two get going then. Shion, be back here by noon, all right?”

            Shion was already stepping through the door of the rink, slipping past Nezumi and heading to the dressing room. “Okay!” he called, then glanced at Nezumi. “Wait out here for me, I’ll be right back.”

            Nezumi didn’t reply, figuring nothing he said would deter Shion’s unknown plans anyway. When he turned back to Karan, it was to see her watching him closely.

            “I feel terrible that we don’t know each other better,” she said, while Nezumi shoved his hands in his pockets, suddenly unsure what to do with them.

            He couldn’t remember if he’d brushed his hair or not, if he’d even looked in the mirror that morning. He resisted the urge to free his hands and wipe at his chin in case he had something – though he couldn’t imagine what – smudged on his face.

            “Oh. Well, I guess we’re both busy,” Nezumi offered, unsure of what to say.

            There was something incredibly welcoming about Karan, a kindness that seemed to exude from her, and Nezumi had no idea what to do with it, how to deal with the warmth that coated him as he stood under her light gaze.

            Karan’s smile grew. “I guess so. Are you busy tomorrow night after your practice with Shion? I’d like to have you over for dinner, with Shion too, obviously. You’re under no obligation to agree, of course. I only think it might be nice to be more acquainted with the man my son has been spending so much time with for the past three months.”

            Nezumi blinked. “Uh, I think I’m free,” he managed.

            Karan tucked loose strands of her hair behind her ear. It looked as soft as the way Nezumi knew Shion’s hair felt, woven between his fingers. “Oh, good. How about six?”

            Nezumi nodded numbly, unsure what about this woman made him nervous, unable to remember the last time he’d been nervous at all.

            “Shion talks about you quite a lot, you know,” Karan said.

            “He talks a lot in general, I was bound to slip in there.”

            Karan did not reply, as Shion had returned from the dressing room, announcing himself loudly as he half ran to where Nezumi and Karan stood.

            “Hey. Ready? What were you guys talking about?” Shion asked, looking breathless and smiling up at Nezumi, who stared back.

            “You,” Karan said.

            “Ready for what?” Nezumi asked, suspicious.

            “I’ll be back at noon,” Shion told his mother, grabbing Nezumi’s hand and pulling him from the edge of the rink rather than answering his question.

            “Okay, hon. It was good seeing you, Nezumi. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

            “Sure,” Nezumi said, the most he could get out before Shion had yanked Nezumi to the exit of the building, which they left to be coated in soft sunlight.

            “Why will you be seeing my mom tomorrow?” Shion asked, not letting go of Nezumi’s hand even once they were outside.

            Nezumi slipped his hand free on his own, tucking it back into his pocket.

            “We’re having dinner with her at six. I didn’t know how to get out of it.”

            “Why would you want to get out of having dinner with my mother? I think it’s good that you get to know her better. You’ve been here for over three months, it’s about time, actually,” Shion mused, leading Nezumi in the direction of his apartment building.

            “Why should I get to know your mother?” Nezumi asked, and Shion turned to look at him, but he didn’t say anything.

            “I’m surprised you came to see me skate. I figured if you had a day off, you’d spend it at the ballet studio,” Shion said, after a minute had passed.

            Nezumi saw Shion’s apartment come into view, but Shion didn’t turn towards it.

            “Where are we going?”

            “I thought we could eat somewhere other than the sushi place for once. You didn’t eat already, did you?”

            “I’m not hungry,” Nezumi said, not thinking about it, but Shion didn’t slow.

            “You can watch me eat then, and keep me company. What did you think?”

            “About what?”

            “My routine. That’s my free skate program. The beginning of it, at least.”

            “The one with the quad no one’s done yet. The axel,” Nezumi said. Shion hadn’t mentioned it, but Nezumi had read it online.

            There were dozens of articles on Shion. Nezumi preferred the interviews, reading the words Shion had said and hearing them in Shion’s voice in his head.

            “How did you know about that?”

            “Everyone knows about that.”

            “Have you been researching me?” Shion asked, sounding too eager, and Nezumi was glad he interrupted himself before allowing Nezumi a chance to reply. “Let’s go here.”

            Nezumi looked up in time to see that Shion was pulling him by the elbow into a diner, tugging him through it to a booth at the back.

            “This is Safu’s and my favorite table,” he said, after they’d slid into opposite sides of the booth.

            Nezumi glanced around, could see no difference with this booth and the next, but chose not to offer this logic to Shion, knowing it’d be useless on him.

            “So tell me, I’d like your opinion. What did you think of my routine? You were watching me for a while, weren’t you?” Shion asked, leaning forward with his elbows on the table.

            Nezumi leaned back in his seat, feeling the leather sink behind him. “Why would you want my opinion? I know nothing about skating.”

            Shion smiled lightly. “You knew I was attempting a quad axel.”

            “Have you done it?”

            Shion reached out, touched a sugar packet in a tray at the corner of the table with the tip of his finger, his eyes dropping from Nezumi’s gaze. “No. My mom doesn’t know I’m working on it either, I told her the news articles about that were just spreading rumors. So I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell her.”

            Nezumi squinted. “Why doesn’t she know? She’s your coach.”

            Shion shrugged. “She thinks it’s dangerous.”

            “Is it?”

            Shion looked up, then, his gaze hard on Nezumi. “Just because something hasn’t been done before doesn’t make it dangerous.”

            “Is that why you’re covered in bruises these days?” Nezumi thought about the new injuries he uncovered nightly from Shion’s skin, blotches to accompany Shion’s scar until they disappeared, replaced by others to discover the next night.

            “I’m not covered in them,” Shion argued.

            A waitress came over, clearly familiar with Shion, and they chatted for a minute or so before she left with Shion’s order. The figure skater hadn’t even looked at a menu, but Nezumi had gathered he was somewhat of a regular.

            “How are you supposed to teach yourself a jump no one has ever done before without a coach?” Nezumi asked, while Shion stirred his water with his straw, the ice cubes clinking gently against the sides of the cup.

            “I’m a coach. I’ve coached you, haven’t I? So I’ll just coach myself.”

            “Don’t think it works that way.”

            “And what would you know about it? Didn’t you just say you knew nothing about skating?” Shion asked, his voice hardening slightly in a way that surprised Nezumi.

            He surveyed the figure skater across from him, the resolution clear over his features that Nezumi knew well by now, had easily memorized – white eyelashes, thick lips, wide eyes with dark half-circles of skin pulling underneath them.

            “Is your mother right?” Nezumi asked, watching Shion take a sip of his water.

            Shion lowered his glass. “What do you mean?”

            “Are you overexerting yourself, coaching me and training at the same time? I don’t care about the contract, Shion. We can cut down my hours, I basically have everything down, I don’t really need so many lessons anymore.”

            A crease slipped between Shion’s eyes. He frowned, the slightest downturn of his lips. “You shouldn’t get cocky. You still have a lot to work on.”

            “I’m not a real figure skater, Shion. This is for a film, it’s all lights and camera angles anyway, it hardly matters how I skate. I just have to be able to keep myself standing on ice, the rest of this is just for publicity for the film. They don’t really need me to be trained by you. You realize that, right?”

            “Of course I realize that. But I’m still your coach, and I’m not going to approve your skating for the film if I don’t think it’s good enough. My name is attached to you, so we’re going to do this right,” Shion replied.

            “The producers don’t need your approval. It might actually be better press if you don’t approve and try to pick a fight with the film makers. They’re all about controversy. All press is good press, isn’t that the saying?” Nezumi asked, leaning his cheek on his palm.

            Shion bristled. “Whose side are you on?”

            “Are there sides?” Nezumi asked mildly.

            “What, do you not want to take lessons anymore? Is that it?”

            Nezumi sat up, dropping his arm and leaning forward. “Why are you getting so hostile? I’m trying to help you out here. You’ve got a competition coming up and an impossible jump to teach yourself, you don’t have time for me.”

            “I do have time for you, and I don’t need you to help me out. I know what I’m doing, I’ve been competing for eight years. I’m fully capable, Nezumi.”

            “I know you’re capable,” Nezumi said calmly, waiting for the waitress who’d appeared to set Shion’s plate of pancakes on the table before he continued. “Just trying to show some concern, some people like that.”

            “Thanks,” Shion murmured to the waitress, picking up a fork as she walked away and glancing at Nezumi. “Why would you show me concern?”

            Nezumi sighed. “Trust me, I’m regretting it.”

            “Do you like me?”

            Nezumi stared at the man. “Currently, you’re being a little irritating,” he said slowly, knowing this was not what Shion had asked, not knowing why Shion had asked it in the first place.

            “That’s not what I’m asking.”

            Nezumi exhaled slowly. “Maybe you should eat, you’ve got to get back to the rink soon. Don’t want to keep your mother waiting.”

            “So we can never have a conversation about this.”

            “About what, Shion?” Nezumi asked tiredly. “This isn’t anything.”

            “It’s been three months, Nezumi. We’ve been sleeping together for three months. You come to my apartment every night, even when you only get back from Tokyo after midnight.”

            “Sleeping together. That’s it. I thought you understood that,” Nezumi said, choosing his words carefully.

            “So you don’t feel anything else for me?” Shion asked, setting his fork down, his pancakes apparently forgotten.

            Nezumi ran a hand through his bangs. “What do you want me to say, Shion?”

            “I want you to tell me the truth. I want you to be honest with me.”

            “I don’t feel what you want me to feel,” Nezumi said, speaking evenly, not bothering with the truth because the truth didn’t matter, the truth was regardless of what he felt, it didn’t matter.

            People were temporary, and so was Shion, there was a contract written out to guarantee that. The entire conversation was pointless, and Nezumi regretted going to the rink in the first place, wasting his first day off on this nonsense.

            “And what do I want you to feel?” Shion asked, sounding truly curious, as if he didn’t even know himself, and how could he not know what he wanted?

            Nezumi knew what he wanted. Understood it was irrelevant, but knew it all the same.

            Nezumi wove his fingers quickly through his bangs, released them. “You’re being a nuisance.”

            “We’re adults. We can have a mature conversation.”

            “Can we? You’re certainly not holding up your end.”

            “I’m not being mature? I like you, Nezumi, I want to have a relationship with you outside sex and skating lessons.”

            “So I’m immature for not wanting that?” Nezumi asked, not knowing why he was asking, why he was allowing this conversation to continue, why he was permitting Shion to get ahead of himself and say more of his stupid words like they meant anything at all.

            “You’re immature for lying about what you want! You’re twenty-five, don’t tell me you’re still scared of a real relationship,” Shion snapped.

            Nezumi leaned back in his seat, crossed his arms over his chest. “You don’t take rejection well, do you? What next? You’ll dare me to go on a date with you?”

            Shion just looked at Nezumi, then looked down at his plate, where he stabbed his stack of pancakes with his fork.

            Nezumi watched him ruthlessly cut the pancakes until they were properly shredded. Shion proceeded to pour an obscene amount of syrup over them.

            “Don’t be wasteful,” he said, and Shion glared up at him, mouth full of pancakes.

            He chewed angrily, swallowed in a way that looked like it hurt, and stabbed another several chunks of his pancakes. “You’re the one being wasteful,” he said, before shoving the next forkful in his face.

            “How is that?”

            Nezumi was forced to wait until Shion had finished chewing before he received an answer.

            “You’re wasting both our time,” Shion finally said.

            Nezumi raised his eyebrows. “What, are you on some sort of deadline to find a mate and I wasted the nights you could have spent searching for your true love? My sincerest apologies.”

            “Your sarcasm is childish,” Shion muttered, stabbing more pancake.

            “Your eating habits are childish,” Nezumi replied easily. “So, what? Do you want me to stop sleeping over? That’s fine, I can give you back your key.”

            “That’s not what I want.”

            “Then stop making a fuss and eat properly, will you? It’s getting a little disgusting,” Nezumi pointed out, and Shion actually put down his fork.

            Nezumi watched him drink water, then wipe his mouth with a napkin before looking back up.

            He stared in a hard way for several seconds, then seemed to deflate, his shoulders falling, his gaze softening. “Okay, Nezumi.”

            Nezumi narrowed his eyes. “Okay, what?”

            “Okay, it’s fine. You don’t want more. That’s fine.”

            Nezumi stared at the man. “Don’t take it so personally.”

            “How should I take it?”

            Nezumi weaved his fingers through his bangs again, held them out of his eyes without dropping them. “Don’t be difficult.”

            “Look, I’m not trying to beg for you, but I just want to be honest with you. I’m not going to pretend not to be disappointed,” Shion said.

            “Maybe you should stop being honest with me, it’s a nuisance,” Nezumi muttered, releasing his bangs to rub at his temples.

            “Are my feelings a burden on you? Because they’re a burden on me too, and technically, they’re your fault, so the least you could do is take some of the weight and responsibility,” Shion rambled on, like anything he was saying made sense.

            Nezumi chose not to respond, and Shion, surprisingly, said nothing more.

            He went back to eating, as recklessly as he had been before. They didn’t speak again – they hardly could, with Shion stuffing his mouth at a constant rate – and then Shion was paying the check, and they were leaving the diner.

            Nezumi walked Shion back to the rink without knowing why, and halfway there, Shion finally spoke again.

            It was a relief, really. Nezumi had been almost getting worried about the figure skater. He couldn’t remember a longer stretch of silence from him.

            “I don’t want to freak you out. I guess I just want more of you, but maybe you’re right, that’s my own problem.”

            Shion spoke gently, like he was wary of scaring Nezumi away, but Nezumi didn’t see the point in that.

            He wasn’t easily scared away. He didn’t need to be treated gently. He hated the thought that Shion thought he could hurt him, break him, as if Nezumi would allow that.

            “More of me? What does that even mean? You want to hold hands? You want to get matching tattoos?”

            Shion laughed lightly, the sound surprising, incredible.

            Nezumi peeked at him, saw that Shion was watching him, should have been used to it but he was not, might never be.

            “I never considered getting a tattoo before, but now that you mention it, I’d think about it. If we got matching ones.”

            “That was sarcasm, Shion, don’t go convincing yourself of stupid things,” Nezumi sighed.

            “I know you don’t owe me anything. I didn’t mean to yell at you in the diner. Sometimes it’s just frustrating, dealing with you,” Shion mused.

            “That’s nice.”

            Shion laughed again. “Sorry.”

            They passed Shion’s apartment, and a block later, they were at the rink. Nezumi stopped outside the door, not wanting to go in and watch Shion skate again, or he might not be able to leave.

            Shion stopped as well. “I have to get inside,” he said. “My mom will be waiting.”

            “Then go inside.”

            Shion looked up at him. A breeze came out of nowhere, flipped through Shion’s hair and was gone again, as if even the sky wanted a chance to play with the white locks, to see if they were really as soft as they looked.

            Nezumi slipped his hands into his pockets.

            “Did I freak you out?” Shion asked.

            Nezumi shrugged. “Not particularly.”

            “Will I see you tonight?”

            Nezumi shook his head as he exhaled, looked away from the guy. He was so ridiculous, Nezumi couldn’t get over how ridiculous he was. “Do you have to ask things in such a stupid way?”

            “How should I have asked?”

            “You shouldn’t have asked at all.”

            “That means yes, then. Nothing has changed.”

            Nezumi peeked at him, not fully turning his head to look at the man straight on. “I thought you wanted change.”

            Shion bit his lip. Released it to speak. “I’d rather nothing change at all then you not spend the night anymore.”

            Nezumi gritted his teeth together, made himself relax. “I’m not sure why you’d want me to keep wasting your time when you could be out on the town looking for your future husband.”

            “You’re not wasting my time. I shouldn’t have said that.”

            “You don’t have to apologize, my feelings weren’t that hurt,” Nezumi said, leaning against the door of the rink, knowing that meant Shion couldn’t go in, not caring, not wanting him to go anywhere.

            He would stand there and listen to the man spew his stupid words rather than be anywhere else, and this was why this had to be temporary, this was why Nezumi couldn’t do more.

            Shion made a mess of all Nezumi knew. Made it too easy to make the wrong decisions, to say the wrong words, to want the worst things.

            “I guess I should go now,” Shion said, and he moved towards the door, so Nezumi moved away from it despite not wanting to – but he knew better than to give in to what he wanted, wasn’t so naïve as that.

            Shion opened the door, but turned back, opened his lips as if to say something – something stupid, probably, something about how he felt, something about honesty, how important it was, and Nezumi had never been one to tolerate being lied to, but Shion made him want it, lies over truth, pretending over what was real.

            He couldn’t stand to hear Shion say something else, how much he liked Nezumi, how happy he was that Nezumi was there, how warm he felt when Nezumi slept beside him – what stupid things to feel, Nezumi hated that he felt them too, hated that he wanted the things that Shion was stupid enough to say aloud.

            So Nezumi didn’t let him. Leaned forward and kissed Shion, the first kiss he offered Shion outside Shion’s bedroom with the exception of their first kiss in the ballet studio, and he wondered if it was just in his head or if Shion’s lips were softer during the day, sweet and almost sticky, almost impossible to break away from.

            _Syrup_ , he remembered.

            Nezumi leaned back. “See you tonight,” he said, before turning away from the man, though he didn’t need to have said it.

            They both knew he would be back at Shion’s apartment that night because he returned every night, had not slept once in the bed in his hotel since his very first week in town, and it had been over three months since then.

            A habit had been made, and Nezumi did not know how he was going to break it.

*


	5. Chapter 5

Naturally, there was press around the fact that the world’s most famous figure skater was coaching an unknown actor for his debut feature film anticipated to come out the next year, but the press was light, had petered out in the months since the first announcement had been made in early February.

            Nezumi’s kiss, of course, changed that.

            Shion first saw the photograph from a text from Safu, a screenshot of a news article that had been sent to her by a coworker at the clinic who knew she was friends with Shion.

            Shion had shown the photograph to Nezumi, who happened to be beside him in bed, eating baby carrots out of a bag even though Shion told him many times that he preferred if they didn’t eat food out of the kitchen.

            Nezumi had been unimpressed and unsurprised. “My agent probably took that. I should yell at her, she’s probably been stalking me waiting for an opportunity like that since she figured out we were sleeping together.”

“You told Kiyoko we were sleeping together?” Shion had asked, distracted form the photograph.

            “Of course not. She likes to blindly assume things, and the things she assumes are usually right. It’s an annoying talent of hers. Does it bother you?”

            Shion had at first thought Nezumi was referring to his agent’s odd talent, then realized he’d meant the photograph.

            “No _,_ ” he’d replied, honestly. He didn’t care what the public thought of him, and he wasn’t ashamed to have been kissing Nezumi. He was used to being in the news anyway. “Does it bother you?”

            Nezumi had been chewing a carrot loudly, and Shion watched the way his jaw moved, then his throat as he swallowed. “Wish they’d got my right side, I’ve been told it’s my better angle.”

            Shion had put his phone down and spent the rest of the night examining the different sides of Nezumi to come to the conclusion that, yes, his right side was his best, but his left was not far behind.

            It was morning now, twelve hours past the photograph’s release, and Shion and Nezumi were headed to the rink for Nezumi’s Wednesday lesson.

            Shion could see from half a block down that a large crowd surrounded the entrance.

            “There’s a back way,” he said, pulling Nezumi’s arm as Nezumi continued to walk. “I have to take it sometimes, the press gets big around competition time. Although obviously, this isn’t about my next season.”

            “Okay,” Nezumi said, allowing Shion to pull him, and only when they were safely in the rink from the back did Shion realize maybe they should have gone through the front after all.

            “Did you want to talk to them? Give a statement? That would be good for your publicity, won’t it?”

            Nezumi looked at him in that way he often did, like Shion was crazy, and Shion didn’t mind the look. He loved every way Nezumi looked at him.

            “You sound like my agent. No, I do not feel like dealing with those idiots at seven in the morning. Or any time, for that matter.”

            “You’re only just starting in the film industry, shouldn’t you be welcoming the press?” Shion countered. They were at the bench now, sitting and pulling off their shoes in exchange for ice skates.

            “Not a fan of cameras.”

            “I’m sure you’re aware that those are a key element to filming major motion pictures such as that which you’re about to star in,” Shion replied, sitting up with a skate still untied to look at Nezumi closely.

            Nezumi’s hair fell over his face as he tied his own skates. Shion thought about reaching out, tucking it behind Nezumi’s ears, but they weren’t in his apartment, and Shion didn’t touch Nezumi outside his apartment but to guide him into position on the ice. “I prefer the theater.”

            “Then why are you doing a movie?” Shion asked, vaguely aware that he’d asked this question before, and when he thought back, he recalled Nezumi’s answer, the same reason Nezumi offered now.

            “Money,” he said, sitting up as well, pushing his hair out of his face with long fingers that quickly tied it up into a ponytail. “And,” he continued, that smirk of his slipping quickly over his lips, “of course, the pleasure of your company.”

            “You should save lines like that for the reporters outside, I bet that’s what they want to hear,” Shion pointed out, and Nezumi laughed, that laugh Shion loved, that laugh Shion wondered if he could live off of despite knowing the necessities of food and water and oxygen to the human body – what if his own body was the exception? What if all he needed was warmth?

            “Yeah, I’ll keep that in mind.”

            They were not an hour into the lesson when Nezumi’s phone began to ring from outside the rink, just as it had been ringing throughout the night.

            “Didn’t I silence that?” Nezumi asked, stopping abruptly so that his skates churned up powdered ice.

            “You put the volume back on for our alarm,” Shion reminded.

            Nezumi cursed, skated out of the rink and silenced it.

            Shion didn’t ask who it was. They both knew it was Nezumi’s agent.

            A half hour after that, while Shion was giving Nezumi tips on how to keep his leg straight during a camel spin, there was pounding against the front door of the rink. The door was usually open, but seeing as they’d entered from the back, Shion hadn’t unlocked it.

            “Ignore it,” Nezumi said.

            “Nezumi!” came a voice from outside the building, identifiable immediately as belonging to Kiyoko. “Let me in!”

            “Maybe you should let her in. She is your agent, and dealing with the press is her job,” Shion said.

            “The press is outside, not in the rink. She can better deal with them outside.”

            “Did she tell you to kiss me?” Shion asked, as Nezumi lowered himself as if about to attempt the spin again.

            Nezumi stood up straight, pulled his bangs from his eyes. He’d forgotten his hair clips, and Shion knew they were sitting on the edge of his bathroom sink, had seen them there that morning.

            “What?”

            Shion shrugged. “That’s fine with me. I don’t mind if you use me for press.”

            “I’m not using you for press.”

            Shion smiled to reassure the man. “I know you’re not having sex with me for press. But you’ve never kissed me like you did yesterday, out of the blue like that. It’s okay if you did it for press.”

            Nezumi squinted at him. Shion liked the feeling of being x-rayed by this man, scrutinized like he was a puzzle.

            He wondered if it was possible that Nezumi thought him as mysterious as Shion found the actor.

            “I already told you I don’t like cameras. You think I’d kiss you for press? And give my idiotic agent what she wants?”

            “Then why did you kiss me?” Shion asked.

            “So you’d shut up,” Nezumi muttered, and Shion couldn’t tell if he was serious.

            “I wasn’t talking. And it’s rude to kiss someone to shut them up.”

            “Are you going to coach me or not?” Nezumi demanded, his hand in his bangs again.

            “Nezumi!” Kiyoko shouted, from outside. “Open up or I’ll spread rumors about you to everyone out here!”

            Nezumi sighed loudly. “She thinks I care,” he said to Shion.

            “I’m going to let her in,” Shion replied. He didn’t care if Nezumi’s agent spread rumors about Nezumi either, but he figured it’d be best if Nezumi spoke to his agent about this. The press largely concerned his career, and even if Nezumi pretended it didn’t matter to him one way or the other if the film did well, it was the first film Nezumi would be acting in, and Shion wanted him and the film to be as successful as possible.

            “Don’t let her in!” Nezumi yelled, as Shion skated to the edge of the rink, pulled off his skates once he was off the ice, and walked to the door in his socks.

            He opened it a slit, and voices poured through, but he was used to having microphones shoved in his face, and smiled as he opened the door wider.

            “Thank you all for coming, but this is a private session.”

            “Shion! What did that kiss mean?”

            “Shion! Have you always been gay?”

            “Shion! How long have you and the actor been in a relationship?”

            “Shion! Will this secret romance influence your upcoming season?”

            Kiyoko slid through the door as quickly as she could, and Shion closed it again on the news casters, who were immediately muffled. He locked the door before turning to Nezumi’s agent, who was beaming at him.

            “Isn’t this excellent?” she asked, her smile wide.

            Shion looked up at her. “It won’t hurt Nezumi to have press like this? A lot of Japan is still pretty conservative.”

            “Even better. People that are angry and disgusted gossip more about what they hate to see than people who are supportive or ambivalent.” Kiyoko turned around, and Shion followed her gaze, watched Nezumi skating around the ice, pulling into a camel position and spinning a few rotations.

            His leg bent out of the position a little too early, but Shion knew he was an amazing skater for someone who’d only been at it for a little over three months.

            “Wow,” Kiyoko said. “You taught him that?”

            “He’s a fast learner. The ballet helps too,” Shion said. He was proud of Nezumi, who continued to skate, clearly uninterested in talking to his agent.

            Kiyoko walked to the edge of the rink, and Shion followed her, stooping to pull on his skates again while Nezumi’s agent leaned against the side of the rink, slipping two of her fingers in her mouth and wolf-whistling loudly.

            “Looking good!” she called.

            “Get out, I’m in a lesson.”

            “You didn’t need to get that good, kid. They won’t let you do any of that fancy stuff, we’ve got a stunt double for all that,” Kiyoko said.

            Shion leaned his elbows on the side of the rink beside Kiyoko, watching Nezumi turn and skate backwards in a quick step sequence.

            It was Shion’s step sequence from a few seasons back. He’d simplified it to teach Nezumi just so the actor had a handle on switching in and out of different positions.

            “I didn’t know you were teaching him all of that. I figured he was still learning how to stand up on the ice,” Kiyoko said, almost wondrously.

            “He could be a competitive skater in a few years if he wanted. He’s really amazing.”

            “Shion, get back here and teach me something,” Nezumi called, not turning towards them.

            “I need to talk to my client!” Kiyoko shouted at him.

            “Busy, sorry!”

            “You can take a break,” Shion offered, knowing the glare was coming even before the actor lifted out of his lunge to cast narrowed eyes onto him.

            Nezumi stopped skating in the curve of the figure eight he’d been completing and skated towards them, stopping a few feet from the edge of the rink and standing with his hands on his hips, turning his glare to his agent.

            “What do you want?”

            “Couldn’t have given me a heads’ up on the PDA? I could have had my guys get a better angle on it,” Kiyoko said.

            “Your guys?” Shion asked, and the agent glanced at him.

            “I’ve been having you and Nezumi tailed, hoping for some action like this. Took you long enough to bring it out of the bedroom, I was getting a little frustrated to be honest.”

            Shion blinked. He was used to people prying into his personal life, but he was surprised at the unabashed way Kiyoko admitted to her intrusion. She almost sounded proud – but then, this was her job, Shion knew.

            “Again, what do you want?” Nezumi asked loudly, and they both turned to look at him.

            “I want more pictures, Nezumi,” Kiyoko said evenly.

            Nezumi laughed, pushed his bangs from his face. “You’re really something.”

            “How about a bit more passion next time? The gentle, lingering kiss is nice for a first kiss, but your fans are going to want a bit more action for the second one. Maybe a hand in his hair, grip his shirt to pull him closer, something like that.”

            “Are all candid photos of celebrities staged like this?” Shion asked, fascinated by the instructions.

            “We’re not doing any of that,” Nezumi cut in.

            “I don’t mind,” Shion said quickly, and he smiled when Nezumi glared at him again.

            “You know, I like you,” Kiyoko said, and Shion glanced at her to see that she was appraising him in a calculated way.

            “Hey. Leave Shion alone, don’t get him mixed up in your schemes,” Nezumi snapped.

            “Is there a reason this bothers you? Don’t tell me you were still in the closet,” Kiyoko said.

            Nezumi exhaled loudly. “We’re busy, Kiyoko. Escort yourself out.”

            “I want to plan the next photograph. We can do that, and I’ll leave you boys alone.”

            “I’m not planning anything,” Nezumi said shortly.

            “Clearly, I don’t need you,” Kiyoko said, not seeming fazed at all as she turned again to Shion. “Do you think we could get one somewhere that there are flowers? The public loves flowers. I found a flower shop a few blocks from here, it’d be perfect.”

            “You want me to drag Nezumi to a flower shop and kiss him?” Shion asked, still amazed.

            “If there are flowers, there doesn’t even need to be a kiss. You can just hold hands, and that’s basically a statement announcing your official relationship right there. Or – this is better, actually, do this instead – tuck his hair behind his ear, that’s a tender gesture, that’ll make hearts melt. And it’ll bring attention to his hair, he’s got great hair, don’t you think?”

            “Unbelievable,” Nezumi muttered.

            “We’re not in an official relationship,” Shion pointed out, ignoring Nezumi’s muttering.

            Kiyoko waved a hand as if to brush the words off. “That doesn’t matter. Do you think anything the press talks about is true? It’s just talk, that’s the point. We want people to talk.”

            “What if we had a mock fight? Like if I slapped him?” Shion asked, feeling himself getting swept up in the whole idea of staging scenarios for the press. It was absolutely fascinating to him that candid photographs could be staged. He had never suspected it, but now he wasn’t sure why it hadn’t crossed his mind.

            He supposed he didn’t really follow many celebrities. It occurred to him that in a few years, Nezumi might be a huge celebrity, but he found this hard to imagine.   

            Nezumi was a private person. Did not seem the type to get caught up in the limelight – which Shion suspected was the root of his current irritation.

            “I like the idea, but you have to build a foundation first. Some more kissing, hand holding, hair tucking. Then the slap,” Kiyoko said, nodding enthusiastically.

            “What is going on?” Nezumi demanded, skating forward and stopping at the edge of the rink. “Are you losing your mind?”

            “It could be fun,” Shion said, turning to him, smiling because it was so easy to smile around Nezumi, the man made him so happy it didn’t make sense, Shion stopped trying to make it make sense. “And good practice for your acting career. We could put on a whole mock show for them. The public.”

            Nezumi stared at Shion with wide eyes. “You actually are crazy.”

            “I think he’s great. Why didn’t we talk before this, Shion? I like the way you think,” Kiyoko said cheerfully.

            “We’re not doing any of this,” Nezumi said roughly. “Get it out of your head.”

            Shion frowned. “You’re no fun.”

            “Being slapped is not what I call fun.”

            “You can slap me,” Shion offered.

            Nezumi looked at him flatly. “Tempting.”

            There was a loud ringing, and Shion looked at Kiyoko, who was digging a phone out of her pocket. “Yeah?” she said into it, turning around as she spoke.

            “I’m serious,” Nezumi said, as Shion glanced at him. “Get this shit out of your head.”

            “If it will really make you uncomfortable, of course I’m not going to force you to hold my hand around flowers for the media. The whole concept of staged candid photographs is very interesting though, don’t you think? It really makes you question what in the news can be trusted.”

            “I think your opinion of interesting is a very unique one,” Nezumi replied slowly. “And celebrity gossip isn’t news.”

            “Technically, this is your fault for kissing me like that,” Shion reminded Nezumi, who narrowed his eyes without speaking.

            Kiyoko turned back around, adjusting her glasses and slipping her phone back in her pocket. “I’ll have to be off, I need to have a word with your producer, actually,” she said to Nezumi.

            “Is he in trouble?” Shion asked.

            “Hardly, the producer wants press more than I do. We’ll talk more on this later, Shion, I’d love to meet with you again.”

            “You will not,” Nezumi said forcefully.

            Kiyoko just reached out and tapped Nezumi’s cheek. “Try to soften up and get on board with your boyfriend, will you?”

            Nezumi didn’t correct Kiyoko on the boyfriend account, and Shion didn’t see the point of it either.

            He wasn’t given the chance, anyway, as Kiyoko was already heading out, was at the entrance of the building when she turned back.

            “And keep up the good work, but don’t you dare get injured on some fancy spin. No jumps, it’s in the contract, don’t forget that,” she called, and then she was gone.

            Shion followed her, taking off his skates yet again to lock the door behind her, then returning to the side of the rink.

            “Remind me never to kiss you again,” Nezumi said, while Shion bent down to replace his skates once more.

            “I don’t really care to agree to that,” Shion replied, lacing up his skates and standing back up, stepping in front of Nezumi with the wall of the rink between them.

            He thought about kissing the man, but didn’t. The kiss the day before had been an accident, and Shion didn’t consider it a normal thing to be kissed by this man whenever he wanted – which was always, always, always.

            “Was it worth it?” Shion asked, while Nezumi’s eyes flickered between his.

            “What, kissing you? Not at all, I’ve got a headache already from this press nonsense.”

            Shion smiled. “Then next time, you should kiss me longer. To make it worth it.”

            Nezumi squinted, looked at Shion in a way he could feel, in a way that expanded his insides, jostled his heart to make room for itself in the small of his chest.

            “What?” Shion asked, when Nezumi said nothing at all.

            Shion had expected some sarcastic retort. Some insinuation that he was crazy, ridiculous, something insane – and he felt it, around Nezumi, he felt his rationality strip away and leave him unreserved, unkempt, something wild and raw and unrestrained, on the edges of unhinged.

            Nezumi shook his head. Skated backwards slowly, as if he was not skating at all but being tugged away from Shion by something neither of them could see. “Nothing,” Nezumi said softly, so softly Shion could barely hear him, tried to lean forward but the wall of the rink stood in his way.

            Nezumi turned, then, skated fully away from Shion, then glanced over his shoulder. “Coming, Coach?” he called, voice restored to normal, so Shion gave himself another few seconds to just look at the man before joining him on the ice, skating over to him, never taking his eyes off of him as he did so.

*

A week after the photograph, the press did not lessen.

            If anything, it had grown, and Nezumi knew this was because the single photograph had been multiplied, more and more photographs in the news daily, capturing Nezumi and Shion walking beside each other to the ballet studio, standing outside Shion’s apartment at night, slipping out the back door of the rink, leaving Shion’s apartment in the morning, waiting in the sushi place to make their orders during their lunch break.

            There was nothing romantic in the photographs. Despite his agent’s constant requests and Shion’s insane excitement at the idea of photo staging, Shion did not pressure Nezumi to hold hands with him beside a flower shop or beg Nezumi to let him tuck his hair behind his ear. Nothing had changed in either of their behavior towards each other, but with each new photograph, the news made it seem like they were closer and closer to some imaginary impeding engagement.

            Nezumi had no idea why anyone cared. Figure skating was not an altogether popular sport, and while Shion had made it more famous in Japan due to his own talent and success, it still was not a big news item.

            “It’s because of you,” Shion said, lifting his leg against the bar alongside Nezumi in the ballet studio.

            “You’re not doing it right,” Nezumi said, examining Shion’s form and finding it completely unsatisfactory.

            “I’m not trying to do it right. I’ve told you many times, I’m not here to learn, I’m here to watch you.”

            “Then get your leg off the bar,” Nezumi said.

            Shion did not take his leg off the bar.

            “Why would anyone care about me? The ballet is not nearly as popular as figure skating, and it’s not like I’m a world champ.”

            “You’re incredible on stage,” Shion said.

            Nezumi leaned into his own outstretched leg, relishing in the strain of his muscles. “The public does not share your obsession with me.”

            “Clearly, they do. Not because of your productions, but your looks. You’re very good looking, Nezumi. That’s why the photographs are so big. People enjoy looking at beautiful people, especially if those beautiful people are having affairs with famous figure skaters, not to mention the whole scandal that we’re both guys. It shouldn’t be surprising to you.”

            Shion finally took his leg from the bar, leaning his side against it instead, and Nezumi copied his actions, stared at Shion fully.

            “You’re assuming all of Japan thinks the same nonsense that you do,” he said.

            “No, I’m assuming those in Japan who are interested in these photographs have eyes, and enjoy looking at you.”

            Nezumi decided it’d be pointless to argue.

            In an hour, they were leaving the ballet studio, waving to Nagisa at the desk and stepping outside to be greeted by, as had been the routine for the previous week, a small crowd of reporters.

            “Nezumi! Shion! Just one statement!”

            Nezumi fully intended on walking past these people as had become his new procedure, but Shion elbowed him.

            “Wait,” he said, and Nezumi glanced at him, saw that Shion was not even looking at him, but at the reporters. “Hi,” he said, and the reporters pressed forward.

            “Shion! Are you doing ballet now?”

            “Shion! Is Nezumi coaching you?”

            “Shion!”

            Shion lifted a hand, smiled that easy smile of his. “If I could just say something,” he said, and everyone quieted, an odd hush that Nezumi did not associate with the microphone-clad stalkers.

            Nezumi tucked his hair behind his ears, wary of what Shion was up to.

            “We’re flattered by all of the attention you’ve been giving us for the past week, but if I could ask that you don’t follow us everywhere, it’d be really appreciated. Nezumi isn’t used to this amount of press, and while I’ve had a good share of experience with it, it does get distracting around competition time. I don’t want to ask you not to do your jobs, but maybe…” Shion trailed off, clearly thinking of what solution he could suggest.

            Nezumi crossed his arms, watched the figure skater think. Typical, that he was trying to empathize with and help the people who’d been pestering them for a full week.

            After a moment, Shion nodded to himself, then addressed the crowd again. “We will each answer one of your questions about our relationship in exchange for a little more privacy. You are, of course, at liberty to take pictures of us, as I don’t think there is a way to stop that, but a little space to allow us to live a normal life is all we’re asking. Of course, you don’t have to agree, but if you don’t, we won’t answer any of your questions.”

            Nezumi could not point out that he had no intention of answering any questions at all, as the reporters started firing countless questions at once, words nearly impossible to make out from the jumble of each other.

            “Um, does that mean you agree?” Shion asked tentatively, and someone from the back of the crowd shouted –

            “Yes!”

            “You do realize they’re still going to stalk us. They’re just lying to you, Shion,” Nezumi said quietly.

            “You should learn to trust people,” Shion replied easily before looking back at the crowd. “Um, okay, I’ll answer my question first. It would be helpful if you raised your hands,” he managed, and somehow, the reporters were agreeing, silencing and raising their hands.

            Shion chose a woman by the side of the pack who stepped forward happily, holding a notebook and pen.

            “Shion, hi, it’s an honor to be able to speak with you, thank you so much for choosing me. My question for you is to know how long you and Nezumi have been in a relationship beyond that of coach and trainee.”

            Shion rubbed the back of his neck and glanced at Nezumi, who just raised his eyebrows, not at all caring to help the guy out with what was his own stupid idea.

            “Well,” Shion hedged, glancing back at the reporter, then looking more relaxed. “Nezumi and I became friends very early on in his training, and have been friends since then. I hope that answers your question.”

            Nezumi snorted. The reporter looked dismayed, but just nodded and forced a smile. “Yes, thank you.”

            Shion looked at Nezumi again. “Your turn.”

            “Lucky me,” Nezumi said, rolling his eyes and deciding to play along if it would make Shion happy, pointing to a guy at random who shoved his way forward, leaning closely enough that Nezumi stepped back.

            “Hey, Nezumi, tell the public what they really want to know – In regards to the world’s best figure skater, does the carpet match the drapes?”

            It took Nezumi a moment to process the question, and when he did, a flash of heat whipped under his skin. “Are you seriously asking me about Shion’s pubic hair?”

            Nezumi was not embarrassed by the question. He couldn’t think of a reason to be angered by it, but there was that sudden heat woven into his pulse, and he didn’t know why it was there.

            There was Shion’s hand on his arm. “Let’s go,” Shion was saying, pushing Nezumi gently, who let himself be pushed, away from the reporters who were chattering loudly again.

            Nezumi only felt at ease when they’d made it to Shion’s apartment building, climbing up the stairs. At Shion’s door, Nezumi watched the man stick in his key, unlock it, open it wide and allow Nezumi to walk in first.

            Nezumi headed to the stove. Put on tea even though it was hot outside. Gave his hands something to do.

            “Hey.” Shion was beside him, elbow nudging him gently. “I’m flattered you’d get angry at a question like that on my account, but it’s okay. They’re like that sometimes. Ask stupid things.”

            “I’m not angry,” Nezumi replied easily.

            “You looked angry. You looked a little like you were going to hit that guy.”

            Nezumi glanced at Shion, who smiled at him lightly.

            “It kind of felt nice. Surprising, definitely, I always feel like you’re very calm and collected, but it was nice to see that question get to you. Like you were being chivalrous or protective or something,” Shion said.

            Nezumi narrowed his eyes. “I wasn’t going to hit someone for being an idiot. I don’t hit you, do I?”

            “It was a stupid question,” Shion said. “He was trying to rile you up.”

            “He didn’t.”

            “I wasn’t bothered by it.”

            “Neither was I.”

            “Nezumi.”

            “What?” Nezumi snapped, not knowing why his tone was clipped. He took a breath, let it out slowly. “Do you get asked shit like that a lot?” he asked, instead of reminding Shion again that he wasn’t angry, because Shion didn’t look convinced.

            Shion shrugged. “Not a lot. A few times. Safu actually would be the one to get questions like that. There used to be a lot of rumors about us. People like romance.”

            “Your friend Safu,” Nezumi said.

            “Yeah.”

            “Were you in a relationship?”

            “You sound like the reporters,” Shion said, laughing lightly.

            Nezumi narrowed his eyes. “The reporters should get out of our faces and mind their damn businesses. How do you put up with that shit? And humoring them today, why would you do that? It’ll only encourage them, that was stupid of you, you’re asking to be treated like that, like you’ve got no right to privacy. You need to learn to shut your mouth sometimes.”

            Shion leaned back. “Are you mad at me?”

            “I’m giving you advice. You should take it,” Nezumi said shortly.

            Shion only looked at him in concern, as if Nezumi was someone to be concerned about. “I’m sorry I put you in that situation. I know you prefer privacy. I know you’re not a public person. I shouldn’t have done that. I thought it would help, that they would back off a little, sometimes they do that if you give them just a little information, but I should have talked to you about it.”

            “Stop apologizing, I don’t give a shit,” Nezumi snapped.

            Shion looked at Nezumi for a long moment. “It’s okay to care about me. That doesn’t make you weak or dependent on me, or whatever it is that worries you.”

            “I don’t care about you,” Nezumi retorted, not thinking.

            The water was boiling, and he stared down at it, the quick bubbles jumping to the top of the kettle.

            Shion didn’t say anything, and Nezumi realized what he’d said, looked up at Shion.

            “Shion.” Nezumi didn’t know what to say. He never knew what to say to Shion because he couldn’t give the man the truth, and what was left?

            _I don’t care about you._

            Nezumi felt the heat from before, worse than before, and it wasn’t anger this time, he knew that, didn’t know what it was but that he felt wrong, he felt sorry.

            “The water’s boiling,” Shion said quietly, reaching out to turn off the stove.

            “Hey. Listen, I didn’t mean that,” Nezumi said, reaching out, catching Shion’s wrist as he tried to move his hand from the knob of the stove.

            Shion slipped his hand free, but Nezumi made that easy, didn’t hold on to the man too tightly, worried he wouldn’t let go.

            It was too easy to be around Shion. To forget that this was temporary. That Shion wasn’t really a person in his life because Nezumi didn’t have people in his life.

            He had people that he worked with, people that he dealt with, people that he slept with, people that would leave if he did not leave them first, so he made sure he did.

            He was always the first to leave. He’d been left behind once and wasn’t about to endure it again.

            Shion turned, opened a cupboard for mugs, took two out and held them because there wasn’t room on the counter due to the all of the ridiculous plants that took up any space.

            He didn’t look at Nezumi, who couldn’t look away from him.          

            “Don’t be stupid, Shion. What, you’re really going to convince yourself that I don’t give a shit about you? You think that’s true?”

            Shion stared down into the empty mugs he held for a moment. When he looked up at Nezumi, there was nothing in his expression at all, but Nezumi still searched for that easy smile as if somehow he could have missed it.

            “Is that your apology?” Shion asked, his tone even.

            Nezumi continued to search Shion’s face. Leaned closer, wondering if he’d heard correctly. “What?”

            “Is that your apology? Telling me not to be stupid? Is that you saying sorry?”

            Shion didn’t sound angry. He sounded very calm, very relaxed.

            Nezumi didn’t know what to do with the unconcerned expression he stared at. “No,” he finally said. “That wasn’t an apology.”

            Shion didn’t ask for one. He held out the mugs. “Want to pour before the water gets cold again?”

            Nezumi continued to look at Shion, but got nothing else, and after a minute he poured the boiled water into Shion’s mugs.

            He retrieved two tea bags, stuck one in each, accepted his mug from Shion but didn’t sip it, watched Shion blow carefully across the surface of his own tea.

            “I’m sorry,” Nezumi finally said, while he watched Shion take a tentative sip.

            Shion peeked up from his mug. Nezumi looked at the white of his eyelashes.

            _Does the carpet match the drapes?_

            He tried to shake the question from his head.

            “I don’t want to hurt you. Not just now, but – ” Nezumi exhaled, looked around for somewhere to place his mug, but of course, there was no space in the kitchen because of those godforsaken plants, sent to Shion by the people who loved him, the people who didn’t even know the man but loved him anyway, sent him stupid plants to tell him so, to let him know, to make sure him knew.

            Shion didn’t say anything, so Nezumi had no excuse, no interruption to stop him.

            “I want you to know that,” Nezumi continued, after giving up his search to find somewhere to put his tea. “That’s not my intention. I don’t want to hurt you, Shion, I know that I do, but that’s not – that’s not what I want.” He heard his voice dropping until he was speaking quietly. Not looking at Shion anymore but his mug that he held in his hands because there was no place to put it.

            Just plants, countless plants. Nezumi didn’t know how Shion kept them alive. Thinking back, he couldn’t remember ever seeing the man water them. Didn’t they need water? When was Shion watering them? Nezumi was always with him, for the last three months they were practically always together but for the few hours of the few days a week Nezumi went to Tokyo.

            Nezumi had never spent so much time with anyone. Never wanted to. Never known how to.

            “I know that, Nezumi,” Shion said, gently, like he was the one apologizing, like he had anything to apologize for, and maybe he did.

            It was his fault Nezumi felt the way he did, the want to be near Shion, the knowledge that it was best to keep his distance all the same. No one had ever done this to Nezumi. No one had ever made it so easy to be happy when that was not even an emotion Nezumi had given much thought to before. No one had ever made Nezumi so worried that this feeling might to be taken away.

            Nezumi shifted his mug to only one hand, tucked his free hand into his pocket, felt that his wallet was there and inside it, the key Shion had given him, smiling as he did so.

            _Don’t complain, it doesn’t have to mean anything. Just take it, will you?_ Shion had said, offering it to Nezumi the moment he answered the door to let Nezumi in one night, almost two months before.

            It didn’t have to mean anything, none of the time spent with Shion had to mean anything – but it did anyway, and Nezumi wanted an apology for that, for all of what Shion had done to him.

            Nezumi brought his hand back to his mug. Sipped his tea, and it was too hot, but he didn’t want to wait.

            He wanted to finish it so he could discard the mug into Shion’s sink and pull the man to his bedroom, to undress Shion and touch him and fuck him because that was all this was supposed to be – skating and sex and nothing else, even if Nezumi found himself, for the first time in his life, wanting everything.

*

It was the second week of May that Nezumi got his next day off from rehearsal in Tokyo, but it was again a Tuesday, so Nezumi woke to Shion’s empty apartment.

            He showered, made eggs, and was eating them from the pan on the stove while watching a video of Shion’s previous season’s skating routines on his phone when the door opened.

            Nezumi did not notice it open at first, as he was listening to the video with earphones, and only realized he was not alone when the unexpected visitor was right in front of him.

            It was not Shion. Nezumi looked up, examined the woman he had only interacted with a small handful of times. He lifted the hand not holding his egg-wielding fork to pluck the earphones from his ears.

            “Safu.”

            Safu held a key in her hand that answered Nezumi’s unspoken question of how she’d gotten into Shion’s apartment. “Why are you here? Does Shion know you eat his food when he’s not home?” Safu asked, not the friendly morning greeting Nezumi might have preferred.

            Nezumi rested his fork in the pan. “It’s in the contract. Shion can only fuck me so long as he provides food and shelter.”

            Safu made no reaction but a slight narrow of her eyes, which she dropped from Nezumi to glance at the video still playing on his phone.

            Nezumi paused it. “He’s at the rink with Karan.”

            “Obviously, I am aware of that. I came to water his plants. He always forgets, and when they die, he gets upset and complains to me. It’s easier to just water them myself,” Safu said, walking around Nezumi to reach up for a cupboard Nezumi never opened.

            There was a watering can in it, which she pulled out and brought to the sink, glancing at Nezumi several times with that scrutinizing stare as she filled it.

            Nezumi wanted to know what she saw when she looked at him.

            “I can water them from now on,” Nezumi offered, deciding to be polite. It was best to win over this woman, Shion’s best friend. He would have done so sooner, but she was rather elusive.

            “That would be pointless. I’ll only have to keep doing it once you leave.”

            “Who says I’m leaving?”

            Safu turned off the sink. Held the watering can at the handle with her other hand steadying the bottom of it. “At the end of June, Shion’s contract to train you will be up. You’ll return to Tokyo. Shion’s plants will die.”

            Safu’s words weren’t questions. She listed them like facts, and Nezumi didn’t understand his urge to challenge them. She was right. He would leave, and the plants would die unless Safu went back to watering them.

            “Until then, I can water them. Give you a break,” Nezumi said.

            Safu didn’t look at him as she went from plant to plant. There had to be at least fifty. Nezumi wondered how often she came here to do this.

            “Why do you care so much about watering plants?” Safu asked. “I didn’t peg you as the type with so much concern for botanical chores.”

            Nezumi leaned against the stove, glancing once behind him to make sure that he’d turned the burner off before turning back to watch Safu plucking plants from the top of the fridge, having to stand on her toes to reach them.

            “I don’t care about the plants,” Nezumi agreed. He looked around at them, crowding the kitchen, making it impossible for Shion to cook and eat like a normal person, instead functioning in a sort of dance, so used to them it was like he had never needed counter-space in his life, never had any desire to sit and eat.

            “Oh, I see. They’re a metaphor. You care about Shion. Watering them, even temporarily, translates to a generous gesture on your part.”

            Nezumi felt his lips pulling up. He could see why Shion liked the girl so much. She certainly was interesting.

            “I don’t really speak in metaphors,” Nezumi said.

            Safu glanced at him after replacing the plant balancing on the tin of tea bags. “Then you won’t mind ending this argument about the plants. It’s getting a little tedious.”

            Nezumi laughed. He tucked his hair behind his ears. “Sure. I’ll pick the new topic then.” Nezumi thought for a moment, remembered what he’d been doing before Safu showed up. “Have you seen his new routines? He refuses to do them for me during my lessons.”

            Safu returned to the sink to refill the watering can. She spoke with her back to Nezumi, the sunlight dousing her hair, longer than when Nezumi had first met her four months before.

            Nezumi’s hair was longer as well, nearly to his elbows by now. Longer than he’d ever let it grow.

            “I’ve seen his short program, not his free skate yet.”

            “How is it?”

            Safu turned off the sink. Walked over to Nezumi, who realized only after several seconds that she was waiting for him to move to water the plants behind him.

            Nezumi moved, but not far. He examined the features of her face. He’d never paid much attention to her before, as Shion had always been present whenever he’d seen her, and Nezumi preferred the white hair, the red eyes, the thick lips, the easy smile, the odd scar, to anything Safu could offer.

            Safu was plain in a way that got prettier the longer Nezumi looked at her. She licked her lips before she spoke.

            “Amazing, of course. He’s amazing.”

            Nezumi forgot he’d asked a question. Remembered it and watched Safu more closely. Thought again about the plants and realized that for her, they were a metaphor as well.

            “You’re in love with him,” he said, and he didn’t know why the words came out sounding like an accusation.

            Safu didn’t even look at him. “I can see why you’re an actor. That was a very dramatic thing to say.”

            “Is that your denial?” Nezumi countered, and Safu finally glanced at him with an eyebrow raised.

            “No. I was in love with him when we were children, and as we grew older. You shouldn’t give yourself much credit for figuring it out, it’s easy to fall in love with Shion. I’m certain I’m not the only one who’s ever done it.”

            Safu moved on to the plants on top of the microwave. Shion had gained four additional plants since Nezumi had known him.

            “So, what? You stopped because he didn’t feel the same way?” It wouldn’t have surprised him. Safu, he was learning, seemed very pragmatic. Not one to waste time on emotions that wouldn’t yield some optimum result.

            But still, she was watering these stupid plants. What good came out of that?

            Safu sighed, turned away from the plants and looked at Nezumi in an almost bored way. “I don’t see why you are so interested, but yes, over time, I stopped loving Shion in that way. That’s what people do when their feelings are unrequited. They love for a period of time, and then they move on.”

            Nezumi could not tell if her voice was more pointed than necessary.

             “Of course,” Safu continued, looking away from Nezumi to examine the watering can in her hands, “I still love him. But in a different way. I love Shion the way he loves me. It no longer hurts this way. I’m not bitter. I couldn’t fault Shion for feeling what he does no more than I could fault myself.”

            Nezumi ran his hand through his bangs, feeling them drift back over his face the moment he released them. “Did he know?”

            At this, Safu smiled, and Nezumi felt his inhale catch. She had a smile just like Shion’s. Genuine, warm. “Oh, he’s very intelligent. But his expertise is lacking when it comes to love. But you should know that, of course. He fell for you, after all.”

            Safu replaced the watering can in the cupboard she’d retrieved it from. Nezumi expected her to say more, but she did not.

            “And that was stupid of him,” he pressed, to clarify, to make sure he understood.

            Safu looked at Nezumi with her head tilted. “Should we resume the plant metaphor you so enjoyed? You can’t water a plant for six months, abruptly stop, and expect it to keep thriving.”

            Nezumi crossed his arms over his chest. “Shion’s not like a plant. He doesn’t need someone else watering him to survive.”

            Safu shrugged. “It was your metaphor. I know he won’t die without you, Nezumi, it’s nothing that dramatic.”

            Nezumi waited for Safu to say what exactly would happen to Shion without him, but she said nothing else until she’d passed him, walked back to Shion’s front door, pulled the key from her pocket.

            When she turned back to speak, it was nothing that Nezumi had been expecting. “Do you know how he’s doing on his quad axel?”

            Nezumi stared, the previous conversation still distracting him, and tried to focus. “Not well. He still comes home bruised and battered. I’m sure he’ll get it. He’s the best at what he does.”

            Safu shook her head. “I’m not worried he won’t be able to do it. I’m worried he won’t know when to stop. Recently, he hasn’t really known what’s good for him.”

            With that, Safu let herself out, and Nezumi heard her lock the door once she’d closed it.

            Nezumi stood still for a moment, then peered into the pots closest to him, saw that little pools of water were at the surface of the soil but being rapidly absorbed, as if the plants were always left wanting more.

*


	6. Chapter 6

The press had backed off in the month since the first photograph of Nezumi kissing Shion outside the rink was released, but all at once on the hottest day of the year, Shion’s Twitter feed was buzzing.

            Not with his own name, but with Nezumi’s. A discovery by a dedicated reporter had been made on Nezumi’s past, linking him to the burning down of a ballet studio just outside Tokyo eighteen years before.

            There had been seven casualties. Shion read their names as he walked out of the dressing room. He didn’t recognize any of them, but he didn’t need to. The article told him who they were – specifically, who three of them were: the mother, father, and baby sister of the burgeoning actor training under Japan’s most prized figure skater, Shion.

            Shion had spent the day in lessons with his mother, then afterward continuing to attempt his quad axel once Karan had left the rink. His continued lack of success had been frustrating him, but as he scrolled through his phone, his frustration dissipated immediately.

            Shion stood very still just outside the door of the dressing room and read the article twice, then a different one, then two others.

            Nezumi’s mother had been a ballerina in several midlevel theater productions before Nezumi was born, but afterward, she’d retired from the theater to teach ballet. She’d worked at a studio in the neighboring town until she had the money to build her own. On its opening day, the studio burned to the ground; the cause of the fire remained unknown to this day, but it was not thought to have been started maliciously. There was one survivor, a little boy who’d been found unconscious but alive, who’d been taken to the hospital, who’d woken in a white room on a cot completely alone.

            Shion stopped reading. Called Nezumi, then called him again, and again after that. He was sent directly to voicemail each time. Knew this meant Nezumi’s phone was off, but couldn’t resist from calling him a fourth time.

            He tried Kiyoko next. Had called her three times when she picked up, speaking immediately – “All matters regarding the most recent news discovered about Nezumi’s family will not be addressed at this – ”

            “Kiyoko, it’s Shion,” Shion interrupted loudly.

            “Oh, Shion, I can’t talk right now – ”

            “Where is he? Is he with you?”

            “Best I can guess, he’s on a train back to you from Tokyo like any other night. Should be there by now, it’s late enough. Kid won’t pick up his goddamn phone,” Kiyoko muttered. She sounded incredibly flustered, and Shion’s momentary worry that she had been behind the news leak was assuaged.

            Everyone said all press was good press, but even Kiyoko did not seem elated by the new publicity for her client.

            “Listen, Shion, text me when you see him. I know the act he puts on, but he’s more breakable than you’d think. You take care of him tonight, all right?”

            Shion nodded, remembered she couldn’t see him. “I will. Kiyoko – Did you know about this? His family, I mean?”

            There was a brief pause, and then – “Yeah. Knew it before I signed the kid. I know everything about my clients before I agree to them. He didn’t tell me, obviously. Don’t think he’s ever told anyone. Doesn’t have many friends, or anyone, really, to tell shit like this to, but I guess you knew that. Look, I have to go, I’ve got a lot to take care of. Remember to text me when you see him.”

            “But what if he’s not coming here? Where else could he be?”

            “He doesn’t go anywhere. There’s his apartment in Tokyo, which I’m currently standing in, the ballet studio at the New National Theater, where I’ve got people on the look-out, and you. You’re my last option here. You’re all he’s got, you don’t know that? I really have to go, just text me, okay?” Kiyoko hung up before Shion could reply.

            Shion kept his phone to his ear as if there might be more coming, but after a moment of silence, he lowered his hand, turned the volume all the way up on his phone so he’d be sure to hear any calls, and pocketed it.

            He went first to the ballet studio at the edge of town, but Nagisa confirmed Nezumi was not in before peppering Shion with questions about Nezumi’s publicized past that Shion apologized his way out of answering, insisting he didn’t know anything, he was in a rush, he had to get going.

            He stood outside the studio, unsure of where else to go – the only other place Nezumi went to that Shion knew of was his own apartment, but Shion was hesitant to go there.

            He realized he was scared to find Nezumi. To see Nezumi as someone breakable, as the man he was in his nightmares, as the boy who’d lost his entire family rather than someone untouchable, unbreakable, invulnerable.

            Shion’s phone rang, but it was Safu, so Shion hung up the call and walked to his apartment, slower than he should have gone, but he couldn’t get himself to quicken his pace. He made it to his building, took the stairs as he always did, was at his door faster than he’d anticipated.   

            He raised his hand to knock, then realized what he was doing, how strange a reflex that had been. He let himself in, closed and locked the door behind him, and stood very still as he listened, hearing immediately that the shower was on.

            Shion didn’t go to the bathroom. He pulled out his phone and texted Kiyoko – _He’s here._ Silenced his phone and went to his bedroom, undressed into boxers and a t-shirt and sat on the edge of his bed, looking at the time on his phone.

            It was a half hour until the shower turned off. Nezumi did not take long showers. He showered in five minutes or less, came out with suds still crowding his shoulders and the creases of his elbows, with conditioner still wetting his hair that he’d rub out with one of Shion’s towels.

            When Nezumi walked into the bedroom now, his skin was pink. Shion noticed it immediately, the blush over his entire body. The actor didn’t have a towel covering him, only one wrapped up in his hair.

            Shion stood up, went to him.

            “You’re home late,” Nezumi said quietly, not looking at Shion even though Shion stood right in front of him.

            Shion reached out. Touched the skin of Nezumi’s chest, his palm warming instantly. There were beads of water on Nezumi’s skin that Shion had assumed were from the shower spray, but now he thought it was sweat.

            “Why did you take such a hot shower?” Shion asked, but his question came out harsher than he’d meant. An accusation. A demand – _Didn’t you feel your skin burning?_

            “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Think you forgot to pay a bill, the water wouldn’t get hot.” Nezumi spoke even more quietly now, still didn’t look at Shion. Walked past him, retrieved a t-shirt and boxers from the dresser, the two drawers that were his – the top right and middle right.

            Shion watched him dress. Pull the towel from his hair, leave the room to hang it in the bathroom, return with sweat having stuck portions of his t-shirt to his skin – over his chest, the lower square of his back, his shoulder blades.

            His skin was still pink, and the color looked odd on his pale skin, unwelcome like a rash.

            Again, Nezumi went to the dresser. Pulled out more clothes – a long-sleeve, a sweatshirt, sweatpants. Shion watched him layer it all on. Stood very still and didn’t know what to do, what to say.

            Nezumi pulled on socks, then another pair over the first. It was mid-May, and the heat struck most at nights. It was the hottest day of the year. Nezumi was already sweating. Shion didn’t know how to point this out to him.

            “Aren’t – Aren’t you hot?” Shion asked, tentative.

            “Freezing,” Nezumi murmured, his voice hardly audible, his wet hair plastered to the sides of his face like patches of the night sky had melted down and stained him.

            Shion walked to him again. Reached out, freed the ends of Nezumi’s hair from where they were stuck under his layers of clothing. Let the hair rest on Nezumi’s shoulders, wetting the fabric of his sweater immediately.

            “Are you hungry?” Shion asked, even though he wanted to ask – _Are you okay? –_ but the answer to that was too obvious, did not need to be spoken.

            “No.” Nezumi didn’t look at Shion, still hadn’t looked at him. His eyes slid to the side of Shion, the carpet by the right of their feet.

            Shion pressed the back of his hand to Nezumi’s forehead like he was checking for a fever. Like maybe the man was just sick. Like maybe he could be cured with a bowl of hot soup, and everything would be better again.

            “Just some soup?” Shion suggested, hearing his own hopefulness, but Nezumi shook his head.

            “No,” he said again, and it came out a whisper.

            Shion dropped his hand from Nezumi’s forehead. Tucked clumps of Nezumi’s wet hair behind his ears. “Let’s just go to bed then?” he offered, and at this Nezumi nodded, so Shion dropped his hand again, this time to Nezumi’s, caught the long fingers in his to find them clammy and too hot.

            Shion pulled Nezumi to bed. Shion hadn’t brushed his teeth or peed, but he slid next to Nezumi anyway. Let Nezumi pull him to his chest. Let Nezumi hold him too tightly.

            “Are you still cold?” Shion asked, and he felt Nezumi’s nod.

            “I don’t know why,” Nezumi breathed. His breath was hot, but no hotter than his body.

            “Maybe you’re sick,” Shion offered, to give Nezumi an excuse, a reason that was not his family, not the news articles, not everyone knowing what Nezumi had never told anybody because he’d never had anybody to tell.

            Nezumi’s fingers dug into the back of Shion’s shirt. Shion felt the push of them against his skin, but it didn’t hurt. Nezumi kept his nails extremely short. Sometimes he cut them so short his fingertips would bleed.

            Nezumi didn’t move after this, and neither did Shion.

            When Nezumi cried, it was hours later, and Shion didn’t notice at first. Realized only as the shoulder of his shirt where Nezumi’s face was buried began to feel wet. Realized only as Nezumi shook, once or twice before stilling again, but it was enough for Shion to know.

            He didn’t say anything. He ran his fingers through Nezumi’s hair, only damp now. There were tangles in it, and he was careful as he worked around the knots.

            Nezumi stopped crying as soundlessly as he’d started. Shion waited for him to fall asleep, but an hour passed, and then another, and Shion knew he was awake because his grip was still tight around Shion’s body, had not yet become relaxed, loose-limbed, as Nezumi was when he slept.

            Shion did not know what time it was when he finally spoke. He could not see the clock. He was sweating from the heat of Nezumi’s body, but he didn’t mind this.

            “Do you want to go to the rink?” Shion whispered the words.

            He felt Nezumi shift against him, heard the rustle of their bodies, the friction of the fabrics of their clothes.

            Nezumi was pulling away from him. Did so slowly, and only just barely, only enough so that he was looking at Shion, who saw that his eyes were wide and wet and amazingly bright.

            “Now?” Nezumi asked. His voice was low and thick, as if he were dreaming.

            “Yeah. Now. I have the key, remember?”

            Nezumi had not fallen asleep despite the early hour of the morning, and Shion did not think this was an accident. He thought Nezumi did not want to sleep. He thought Nezumi did not want whatever sleep would bring him, the nightmares Nezumi might not have known he had – but maybe he did know, and maybe he was terrified of them.

            Nezumi didn’t say anything. Instead, he sat up, and Shion sat up as well. They got out of bed, Nezumi in his layers, Shion pulling on a pair of joggers. They put on their shoes, grabbed their skates, and left Shion’s apartment, Shion remembering to check the time on the microwave just as they were leaving – 2:34 a.m.

             The night air was heavy and hot, and to get to the rink was a relief. It was freezing inside, but Shion was used to this cold. He kept his iPod with his program music in the dressing room, and retrieved it while Nezumi put on his skates. When he returned, he pulled on his skates as well, skated with Nezumi around the rink a few times – doing nothing but lapping the rink slowly in even steps – before he suggested it.

            “Can I show you my programs?”

            Nezumi stopped skating without a word. Leaned against the wall of the rink, so Shion gave him his iPod, told him what music to play, skated to the center of the rink.

            “The first one is my short program,” Shion called. “Give me three seconds, then press Play.” He closed his eyes. Stood in his starting position, took a breath, and heard the music start.

            While Shion skated, he wanted to look at Nezumi, but didn’t. He had three quads in the program alongside his other jumps, none a quad axel. He was confident in his short program, was working mostly on mastering his free skate with his mother at their sessions now.

            Still, he concentrated completely as he skated. Wanted to give Nezumi the best performance he’d ever done, wanted to prove to this man that it was worth it – that leaving the theater, signing on for a feature film, coming here, being trained by Shion, dealing with the press, having the world learn about his family – that it was worth it, that Shion was as good as everyone said, that Nezumi didn’t have to regret being trained by him.

            When Shion finished, he didn’t skate any closer to Nezumi. Remained in the center of the rink and lifted his head to the ceiling and closed his eyes and breathed hard.

            After a few seconds, he opened his eyes again. Turned to look at Nezumi, but still didn’t move closer. “Give me a few minutes to catch my breath before I go into my free skate.”

            It was not a good idea to do two programs in a row, especially with so many jumps in both. But Shion had never felt less tired in his life. He did not feel weak. He did not feel fatigued. He felt as if now was the moment to do the best skating of his entire life, for Nezumi and Nezumi alone.

            Shion did not know how many minutes he let pass. During this time, Nezumi resumed skating around the rink, and Shion watched him, turning with each curve and never letting Nezumi skate out of sight.

            Nezumi skated slowly. Easily. As if he’d been born skating, as if he was just walking. He didn’t do any positions or spins. He skated and skated, and Shion thought he would never tire, he would go on endlessly if Shion allowed him, if the sun never rose.

            Shion thought it was around fifteen minutes, when he called out again, still from the center of the rink. “I’m ready,” he said, and Nezumi skated to the point where he’d stood before, then leaned against the wall again.

            Shion counted to three in his head, and then he heard his music, and he began his free skate. It was two minutes longer than his short program, but he was not in a rush, did not want it to finish because then there would be nothing keeping them awake any longer, no excuse for them not to return to bed where Nezumi might have a nightmare, and Shion might have to hear it, to know why Nezumi felt so lost, to know that the shouts he made were never answered.

            Shion still could not do a quad axel. He skated his program as he had for his mother, and soon he had skated it nearly entirely. Soon all that was left was his last quad, what was supposed to be his second quad loop.

            Now, Shion was out of breath. The exhaustion had hit him all at once around the first minute of the program, but he didn’t stop. Could hardly breathe, felt faint, but kept going, and then he was skating the adjusted step sequence to take him into the quad axel, which he lifted up into.

            Shion fell after only two rotations.

            When he fell, he stayed down. Hands on the ice, doubled over, trying to catch his breath. He heard nothing but the sound of his own pulse, thick in his ears, and the harsh rush of his inhales and exhales. He looked up after a minute or so, and there was Nezumi standing in front of him, wordless and expressionless.

            Nezumi extended a hand, and Shion took it, allowed the man to pull him up, did not feel as if he could have stood up on his own.

            “I shouldn’t have skated both programs in a row,” Shion explained. His legs felt weak and shaky.

            Nezumi kept hold of his hand, skated Shion to the edge of the rink, then outside of it. They sat beside each other on the bench, not taking off their skates. Shion found that it was easier to breathe. He wiped the sweat from his forehead.

            “Was that last one the quad axel?” Nezumi asked, and when Shion turned to him it was to see that Nezumi was still looking out at the rink, as if there was still something to watch.

            Shion looked out at it too. The Zamboni would come in an hour or so, and the lines that Shion’s and his mother’s skates had made the day before still stained the ice.

            “It was supposed to be. I only got in two rotations.”

            “I can help you practice.”

            Shion looked at Nezumi again. Studied his profile and could find no answers there. His eyes were rimmed red, but his skin was no longer pink.

            “When?” Shion asked, instead of asking how Nezumi could teach him a jump he didn’t know.

            “Now. Any night. We can come here at nights. I know what the triple axel looks like, I’ve been watching videos of it. I can watch you, tell you what your form looks like, what’s going wrong. And I can take videos of you on your phone so you can look at it too.”

            Shion leaned away only enough so he could take in more of the man, who was looking at him now as well. “Aren’t you tired?”

            “No. Are you?” Nezumi asked.

            Shion’s legs were sore, his body was exhausted, but he didn’t want to sleep. He wanted to stay in this rink with Nezumi forever.

            “No,” Shion said.

            Nezumi nodded. He looked away from Shion again. Started pulling off the layers of his clothing until all that was left was his t-shirt and sweats, and then he stood.

            “Take a half hour or so to catch your breath, and then we’ll start,” he said, and then he was on the ice, and Shion sat on the bench and watched him skate.

            If he closed his eyes, listened only to the sound of skates on ice, Shion felt the comfort of his entire life growing up in this rink. It became easy to think only of everything that made him feel safe and happy and at home. It became effortless to forget that earlier that same night, Nezumi had cried into his shoulder, soundless and broken and still learning how not to be alone.

*

For a week and a half, they spent their nights at the rink.

            Nezumi realized the rink was cold. He had not noticed before. If he had, it had only been momentarily until he was on the ice himself, his movements warming his body quickly.

            Helping Shion with his quad axel meant Nezumi did not move much. He stayed at the side of the rink, held Shion’s phone in his hand, and shivered as Shion jumped.

            After each jump, Shion would skate over to him. Stand close, his hair sometimes touching Nezumi’s cheek as he leaned over Nezumi’s shoulder and they both watched the video Nezumi had taken. Shion would lean even closer to point to his own legs on the phone screen. Find the flaws in his form. Push Nezumi’s fingers aside so he could rewind the video a few seconds, rewatch the same two-second interval of the clip seven times before skating back away from Nezumi to the center of the rink, taking his warmth with him.

            Nezumi soon became accustomed to the cold. Wore layers and fingerless gloves. It helped that he did not sleep much anymore, with nights spent at the rink and days spent either in lessons with Shion or rehearsals in Tokyo. He was too exhausted to expend energy on shivering. He was relieved to be exhausted. It was a safe emotion. One he had dealt with before. One he knew how to ignore.

            On the tenth night spent at the rink, Shion spun four rotations, then landed on his feet. He almost lost his balance after the landing, but didn’t.

            Instead, he swerved quickly in a skid of ice to stare at Nezumi, who stared back, forgetting to stop recording the video.

            “Did I do it?” Shion asked.

            Nezumi was trying to remember. He was certain he’d counted four rotations, but how could that be right?

            “I think I did it,” Shion was saying.

            Nezumi looked away from him. Down at Shion’s phone, stopping the recording, playing it back, counting again.

            Four rotations.

            Nezumi looked up. “You did it,” he confirmed, and all at once Shion was skating towards him, too fast, not stopping, crashing into Nezumi. His laughter pressed tight against the side of Nezumi’s neck as they fell to the ice.

            Nezumi landed hard but didn’t even feel it. There was Shion on top of him, their limbs overlapping. Nezumi’s vision was blocked by his bangs, covering his eyes, and he raised his hand, but Shion’s fingers were faster, pushed his hair out of the way.

            His vision cleared, Nezumi could see the wide smile stretching Shion’s face. His eyes were creased. There were bags under his eyes. He looked exhausted and happier than Nezumi had ever known a person could be. He felt jealous, for a split second. He wanted that – that happiness, that ease at which Shion felt it, let it consume him, let it radiate out of him, a warmth that sunk into Nezumi so that he didn’t notice the chill of the rink his body pressed to.

            “I did it,” Shion said, breathless around his smile.

            “You did it,” Nezumi replied, and he was smiling too, he could feel it, but it was small, not nearly as wide as Shion’s, and he wanted it to be.

            He wanted Shion to know. Nezumi was amazed by this man. Nezumi was so proud of him.

            Shion’s arms were around him. Nezumi relaxed into them, against the ice. Reached up and touched Shion’s lips to feel the warmth of that smile on his skin.

            “You’re incredible,” Nezumi said softly, an attempt for Shion to know the truth, not all of it, but the most of the truth Nezumi could give him.

            Shion was laughing again. Dipping his head forward so that his forehead was against Nezumi’s, and Nezumi dropped his head back, rested it against the ice, was glad Shion’s forehead followed his.

            “Thank you for helping me. Thank you so much,” Shion whispered.

            Shion’s body was heavy. A noticeable weight over Nezumi’s. Nezumi was scared for the moment Shion got up. Was certain the lack of his weight would be too noticeable, an emptiness Nezumi would carry in Shion’s place.

            Nezumi didn’t say anything. Shion’s head moved, off from his forehead and dipping down into the crease of Nezumi’s neck. Shion didn’t make any effort to get up, and Nezumi was so grateful for this.

            “Thank you for coming into my life,” Shion breathed, but the words were stuck on Nezumi’s skin, muffled by his pulse and nearly inaudible, so maybe this wasn’t what Shion had said at all.

            Nezumi decided it wasn’t what Shion had said. Nezumi decided Shion hadn’t said anything at all.

            It was a minute more when Shion got up. In that time, Nezumi had started feeling the cold of the ice against his back. Nezumi pushed himself off the ice after Shion had stood without looking at Shion, without wanting to see if a hand was extended to help him.

            Standing, they watched the video Nezumi had taken, watched Shion’s successful quad axel five times in a row before Shion announced that they weren’t nearly done, that he still had to incorporate it into his program, be able to do it after four minutes of skating and several other jumps had been performed.

            Nezumi was glad there was more work to do. He looked forward to more nights at the rink spent watching Shion without time at all to think about anything or anyone else.

*

When Shion showed Safu the three videos of him doing three successful quad axels from two nights previous, the first thing she asked was –

            “Does that clock in the rink really say it’s half past twelve?”

            Shion stared at the video she was pointing to. “You’re supposed to be looking at me, Safu.”

            “I am looking at you. You’ve got terrible bags under your eyes. It can’t have been half past noon that you were doing that quad because on Tuesday you had a session with your mother. So that means you were at the rink at midnight,” Safu said, replacing her fork on her plate.

            They were at the diner. It was Thursday afternoon, and Shion had just finished his session with his mom, while Safu was taking a quick break in between double shifts at the clinic.

            Shion regretted not just telling Safu he’d mastered the quad the day before, on Wednesday when he could have done it at noon during his lesson with Nezumi, rather than on Tuesday when the time on the clock had to mean midnight. He should have lied, but he had never been good at lying to Safu.

            “Nightly practices are just a temporary thing,” Shion said. Safu did not appear any less disapproving. “I know you’re worried about me, but you don’t have to be. I’m perfectly fine. I did a quad axel, Safu! A quad axel! I’ve been dying to tell you, I can’t wait to show you in person.”

            At this, Safu offered a small smile. “Well, don’t be dumb, of course I’m incredibly proud of you, Shion. You’ve always been amazing. I just want you to be safe about what you’re doing. You are still doing the quad axel in the first half of your program like you promised, right?”

            Shion nodded, making sure not to break her gaze. “Of course. Isn’t it cool though?” He replayed the first video, watched Safu lean over the booth to watch it again.

            “It’s really beautiful,” Safu agreed.

            After the quad in the video there was Shion’s asking – _Did I do it?_ _I think I did it._

            “You’re talking to Nezumi there,” Safu said. Not a question, Shion noticed, but he chose to answer it.

            “Yes. He helped me learn it.”

            “That was nice of him,” Safu said, and Shion tried to understand what it was she was thinking, unused to his friend not simply telling him what was on her mind.

            “You don’t like him,” Shion guessed.

            At this, Safu looked surprised, settling back in her booth and shifting her remaining half a pancake with her fork to the corner of her plate with more syrup. “Yes, I do.”

            “You do?”

            “I don’t know him well, but from what I know, I do like him as a person. If circumstances were different, I would not mind becoming more acquainted with him and considering him as a friend.”

            Shion exited out of his videos and pushed his phone to the side of the table, beside the ketchup bottle that appeared empty. “If circumstances were different?”

            Safu was chewing a bite of her pancake, did not speak until she’d swallowed. “If he weren’t stringing you along.”

            Shion leaned back. “He’s not stringing me along.”

            “Of course he is.”

            Shion shook his head. “He hadn’t given me any misconceptions about what to expect. I know he doesn’t return my feelings, and that’s fine. I’d rather things were different, but if they aren’t, I can’t change that.”

            Safu sighed. “Shion, you’re getting your hopes up.”

            Shion stared at his best friend. “How can you say that? I just told you I understand what he feels! He doesn’t want commitment, he doesn’t want long term, he doesn’t want anything he can’t control – I completely understand.”

            “Do you? You understand that it’s now the beginning of June, and your contract to coach him lasts until the end of this month? You understand that at the end of the month, Nezumi will be leaving, and that will be it?”

            Shion leaned over the table. “Yes, I do, and will you please lower your voice?” he whispered, feeling hot, unsure if it was embarrassment or something else, what else it could be.

            Safu just shook her head. “I don’t think you understand that at all, Shion. I think you know it’s going to happen, but you won’t let yourself even imagine it. I think you’re keeping yourself up at nights because you want to spend every second you can with Nezumi, but it’s foolish and it won’t lead anywhere and you’ll end up disappointed and heartbroken. And I think Nezumi knows all of that, he knows he’s going to hurt you, and he’ll gladly do so anyway because you’re a distraction from his own life, and he’s selfish enough to take advantage of that rather than to consider what you’re feeling and what he’ll do to you as a result.”

            Shion felt as if his heart was beating far too quickly when he was only sitting down, he wasn’t even moving. “How can you say all of that? You don’t even know him,” he demanded, and he heard the anger in his own voice.

            Safu heard it too, Shion could see it in the widening of her eyes, the way her expression immediately softened. “Shion. I don’t know him, but I know you, and I know this is true. I just care about you. I am seeing how happy Nezumi makes you, and it scares me so much what it will do to you when he inevitably leaves. I just care about you, you’re my very best friend.”

            Shion pressed his palms against the booth on the sides of his thighs, wanted to get up and leave but didn’t want to fight with Safu, hated fighting with her. “If you know me so well, you should know I’m not stupid. I’m very well aware that Nezumi doesn’t want to make a relationship work long-term between us. I’m not fooling myself with any of this. My expectations are well in check.”

            Safu’s eyebrows creased. “Shion – ”

            “I know you don’t mean anything by it, Safu, I know you’re just trying to help. But I don’t need help. I’m a grown man, and I know how to keep my feelings in check. Thank you for your concern, but I don’t need it.” His voice was stiff, and Shion could do nothing to soften it.

            He watched Safu look at him sadly for another moment, then nod slowly, tuck her hair behind her ear.

            “You’re right. I’m sorry,” she murmured quietly, looking down at her plate, and Shion wanted to apologize too, unsure what he was sorry for, only knowing that something felt wrong between them and he was desperate for it to be right.

            But Shion felt too tired to know what to do, and when Safu changed the subject back to his quad axel, Shion allowed it with relief.

*

Nezumi had just gotten back from Tokyo and went straight to the rink.

            He would wait there for Shion, who he knew was with Safu, probably showing her the videos of his successful quad axels.

            Nezumi was glad for some time alone at the rink. He laced up his skates and made laps around the ice, then practiced a few spins, was considering teaching himself a simple toe loop that he knew well enough from watching skating videos when a voice stopped him from attempting the jump.

            “Oh. I saw the lights on when I passed by and assumed I’d forgotten to turn them off after Shion’s lesson.”

            Nezumi turned to find Shion’s mother at the entrance of the building. She let the door close behind her and walked forward, so Nezumi skated to the edge of the rink.

            “You can keep skating if you’d like. Do you mind if I watch you for a bit?” Karan asked, and Nezumi didn’t know how to refuse her request, so he merely nodded and skated back away from her.

            At first, he was self-conscious as he skated in front of this woman, but soon he forgot she was there, was skating the positions he knew, the spins he’d learned, the step sequences Shion had taught him until he again was thinking about that toe loop.

            He knew nothing about executing jumps, but he’d seen them often enough, knew the forms and what his body needed to look like, recalled what poses within the jump were similar to those he knew from ballet.

            He skated a quick figure eight, then lifted himself up, completing the turn in the air but realizing too late he didn’t know how to land, and he crashed down on his skate, forcing himself to fall onto his side so that the brunt of his weight wasn’t on his skate and he wouldn’t twist his ankle.

            He slid a foot or so across the ice before stilling on his side, where he laid a moment before pushing himself up.

            He stood tentatively, making sure his ankles were all right with his weight, and was about to skate again when he heard Karan. He remembered in a shocking instant that she was still there and had no idea how he could have forgotten.

            “I didn’t know Shion was teaching you jumps.”

            Nezumi looked up, saw that she was right across from him, standing against the opposite side of the rink.

            Nezumi skated a few feet forward, keeping distance between them, wary of this woman whose presence he couldn’t even keep track of, who made him both uncertain and achingly comfortable within the same beat of his heart.

            “He’s not,” Nezumi said, pushing his bangs from his eyes.

            “On the landing, you want to think of your next step rather than the jump. Once you complete the rotation, the jump is over. Landing isn’t a part of the jump, it’s the first movement towards the next position.”

            Nezumi stared at her, then absorbed what she was saying. He turned away from her, skated a few steps, then jumped again, spinning quickly and thinking about the step he’d take after landing instead of the landing itself, feeling his skate touch the ice without the fear that his momentum would be too much for his balance and landing cleanly, wobbling only afterward when his concentration slipped with the realization that he’d completed a jump, and then he was falling.

            He got up from the ice, turned towards Karan immediately, found her leaning further over the wall of the rink with a finger over her lips that she moved to speak.

             “Your form wasn’t so good this time, you were thinking about your next step too quickly while you were jumping so that you forgot to focus on the jump itself. You lost your previous precision.”

            Nezumi took a breath, let it out slowly. He was used to Shion’s coaching – the man was all praise with constructive criticism slipped in. Shion’s mother, Nezumi could see, was much stricter, and Nezumi understood immediately why Shion was as good as he was.

            Nezumi pushed his bangs from his eyes again, held them up and saw that Karan was smiling.

             “I’m impressed,” she said.

            “You just said it was sloppy.” Nezumi realized he sounded childish, ground his teeth.

            “It was your first completed jump, it’s not supposed to be perfect. But you learn very quickly, that’s impressive. And your form in general, from what I’ve been watching, it’s very lovely. You are beautiful to watch.”

            Nezumi dropped his hand from his bangs. Felt his arm fall limply by his side, could not think of what to say to this woman whose smile only seemed to soften further.

            “I can see the ballet coming out in your movements. It adds something to your form that many figure skaters take years to achieve,” Karan said. She reached up, tucked the loose strands of her hair behind her ears.

            Nezumi wondered what she’d looked like decades before, when it had been her on the ice.

            “My coach, he used to tell me and my rinkmate that the best figure skaters were ballet dancers who preferred ice.” Karan laughed. “He would make us watch ballets, and my rinkmate and I would be so frustrated. We only wanted to learn the spins and jumps, to try out triples and the flashiest moves. But every time we asked to learn something new, our coach would sit us down in that back room there and make us watch another ballet. We used to think he was crazy.”

            Nezumi felt his heart beat slowing in his chest. He felt calm again, in a wash over him, listening to Karan talk about her past.

            He had not known she’d been made to watch ballet. He wondered if she’d incorporated this part of her training into Shion’s as well, but Shion had never mentioned it.

            “We learned, after some time, admittedly, that he was teaching us about the real art of figure skating. The best figure skaters are not the ones who can do the most tricks, who can jump the most jumps and land the most rotations. The best figure skaters are those the audience cannot take their eyes off of.”

            Nezumi thought immediately to Shion. The best figure skater in the world, and it made sense now. Nezumi never wanted to look away from him.

            “Championship programs require certain skillsets and jumps from every figure skater in competition, but once you have that required ability, it’s no longer about what you can do. To master the most complicated forms and difficult jumps doesn’t mean anything if you cannot skate beautifully. I worry that Shion is forgetting that, getting caught up in pushing himself harder and harder and forgetting that figure skating is centered on turning life and energy into something beautiful. That is what ballet teaches,” Karan continued, her voice having grown softer when she spoke of her son, and Nezumi found himself skating closer to her, slow steps.

            “Why didn’t you have Shion take ballet lessons?” he asked, curious, wanting Karan to keep talking about ballet because he felt a connection to her this way, liked this connection, was honored to have something in common with a woman who seemed so warm.

            Karan looked at Nezumi in a full way, a way that seemed meaningful to the extent that Nezumi grew wary, and he felt himself stopping on the ice a few feet from her.

            “I was going to. My coach had taken my rinkmate and I to the ballet a few times in the city – in Tokyo – and I always remembered one ballerina, how beautiful she was. Years after I stopped skating competitively, when Shion was just a boy, I saw that the ballerina I’d used to love had opened up a studio. I decided I’d take Shion there for lessons.”

            Nezumi was not aware that his breathing had shallowed. His first thought was that Karan was lying – she had to be lying. She was a liar, everything about her, the safety she promised and the warmth and the creases around her eyes when she smiled and the way she made Nezumi’s chest ache in a way he couldn’t explain – it was all a lie, she was just a liar, and he despised her in that moment more than anyone in his entire life.

            “After the fire, I was scared to take him to another studio in Tokyo, and there wasn’t yet a ballet studio in this town. I tried to teach him what I knew about ballet on the ice, but he never had actual lessons,” Karan continued softly, while Nezumi’s eyes burned, while his skin burned, while his throat burned.

            His blood was too hot. His pulse too fast. His hands were in fists. He was so angry that he could not speak, his throat was too tight and he could not speak.

            When Karan continued speaking, it was near a whisper. “I don’t know why I didn’t recognize you immediately. It was so long since I’d gone to those ballets, it all seemed like a separate life. But you have her same striking features, and I should have known on first glance who you were.”

            “Stop,” Nezumi breathed, his voice too shallow to break. He blinked quickly, wanted to curl into himself, could not believe this woman was standing feet from him telling him he looked like his mother when he hadn’t let himself think about his mother in years.

            But that wasn’t true. For two weeks, he’d been forced to think about his mother, about his entire family while the country discussed it like it had anything to do with them. But Shion had been a distraction, and where the hell was he anyway?

            He was supposed to be here. He was supposed to take Nezumi’s mind from the rest of the world, he was supposed to keep them both up all night so that Nezumi could barely think clearly at all and certainly not about people from so long ago, people that were gone now, had been gone for most of Nezumi’s life, they shouldn’t have been able to hurt him anymore, not like this, not like this.

            Karan didn’t say anything for a moment, and Nezumi could hardly see her. His vision was blurred, and he kept blinking quickly. He felt as a drop of water caught on his eyelashes and another fell down his cheek, hot and sudden.

            “I hope you know,” Karan said, her voice extremely gentle after a minute of silence, while Nezumi rubbed hard at his eyes, “that you are just as beautiful as she was. And I am honored that you let me watch you for a little bit tonight.”

            Nezumi had pressed the bottoms of his palms hard against both of his closed eyes. He did not move them. He stood very still and breathed very deeply and needed Karan to leave. Focused only on breathing and did so for fifty breaths that he counted in his head, and when he dropped his hands from his eyes, he was alone again in the rink.

            He nearly fell to his knees on the ice, but made it to the edge of the rink, clambered out, collapsed on the bench and dug his elbows into his thighs, wove his fingers through his hair and stared at the space between his knees.

            Nezumi kept breathing and did not move. He waited for Shion to get to the rink, to distract Nezumi from the people he had no reason to be missing after he’d been forced to survive for eighteen years without them.

*


	7. Chapter 7

After Nezumi’s lesson, they went to Shion’s apartment to grab something to eat before they’d return to the rink as had become their new tradition, where Shion would work on integrating his quad axel into his free skate until the early hours of the morning. They usually went back to Shion’s apartment around four in the morning, where they’d allow just a few hours of sleep – not enough to really take the exhaustion away, but enough to keep going.

            Shion made eggs for them in the kitchen – good for fast energy – and went to the bedroom to collect Nezumi to find that he was asleep on top of the blankets, his clothes still on.

            The clock on Shion’s nightstand said it was seven in the afternoon.

            Shion watched Nezumi’s chest rise and fall. It was the middle of the third week of June. Nezumi had ten days before the contract Shion had signed would be up. Shion had just under six weeks before he’d compete in the Asian Open at the end of July. He could only successfully execute a quad axel on its own around forty percent of the time, and never when he tried to incorporate it into the second half of his free skate.

            There wasn’t time to sleep, but Shion knew the bags he examined under Nezumi’s eyes were echoed on his own face.

            They needed sleep. And even if that meant the risk of Nezumi having a nightmare, Shion couldn’t wake him. Nezumi looked so peaceful, in this moment, and Shion’s heart ached for him. It hurt to look at him.

            Shion left the room. Went to the bathroom, undressed slowly, took a long shower in hot, hot water, let his muscles melt beneath his skin until he could hardly stand at all.

            He got out of the shower, dried himself, walked naked back into his room to his dresser, pulled on only a clean pair of boxers and walked around his bed to the side opposite where Nezumi lay, sprawled, his hair loose in a dark mess that pooled around his head, an inky halo.

            Shion didn’t get under his blanket. He arranged himself around Nezumi until he was certain the most of his body was touching the most of Nezumi’s that it possibly could at one time. Nezumi shuffled against him, soft movements, burying only closer to Shion.

            Shion’s lips were pressed to the underside of Nezumi’s jawline. “I fell in love with you a lifetime ago,” he whispered into the pale skin there, and he received nothing but the sound of even breaths in response.

            Shion didn’t want a response. It was everything to fall asleep beside the man as he had every night since the first, the heat on his skin hotter than any starlight.

*

Nezumi hated the film industry.

            He hated the rehearsals of lines, nothing like rehearsals at the theater. There was no risk in film. There was no memorization. It was a repetition – the same scene over and over until it was perfect, but Nezumi couldn’t see how perfect could be trapped by a camera lens.

            It had to be witnessed, seen in person in a dark theater with lights only on small spots of the stage, not shining from heat lamps surrounding staged platforms on looming pedestals.

            They were to start shooting in July, in just a week, once Nezumi was done training with Shion even though he didn’t need training anymore. He knew more than his producers would allow him to perform on the ice. He’d met his stunt double, skated beside the man, and Nezumi knew he was the better figure skater.

            Kiyoko knew it too, and Nezumi heard her arguing one day from outside her trailer. Nezumi had been about to let himself in, stopped at the raised voices inside – Kiyoko insisting the director allow Nezumi to do more on ice, that he was capable, that he was much more talented than the double they had for him. The director continued to refuse.

            Nezumi was not even allowed to do spins. Hardly any positions. His lessons with Shion had been pointless, just a publicity stunt, but Nezumi had known this from the start, did not know why it angered him.

            Kiyoko also argued with his director about the press. The director wanted to milk Nezumi’s tragic past, his lost family. Kiyoko was, surprisingly, not on board, argued with Nezumi’s director constantly while Nezumi pretended not to notice.

            He did not care to get involved with anything but the scenes he had to shoot. He wanted to get this movie over with as quickly as possible. If there had to be pictures of the burnt down studio from eighteen years ago in the tabloids, fine. Nezumi didn’t read tabloids. He didn’t watch entertainment television. He didn’t give a damn about any of it, any of these people, any of this shit.

            “Hey, Nezumi, wait up,” Kiyoko called, while Nezumi stood in front of the table of food put out for the actors.

            He picked up a muffin. He thought about Karan.

            Kiyoko was standing beside him. “Hey, kid. How are you doing?”

            Nezumi looked at her. Lifted the muffin to his lips, took a small bite. He didn’t like muffins. He didn’t know why he’d picked it up.

            “Are you okay?” Kiyoko asked.

            Nezumi swallowed. “Fine. Want the rest of this?”

            Kiyoko didn’t look at the muffin Nezumi offered her. “Just a week left of skating lessons, right?”

            Nezumi didn’t see the need to confirm. Kiyoko had written the contract herself.

            “You can still visit him. You can still go to see him just to see him. The schedule here will get grueling once shooting starts, but you’ll still have days off. I’ll make sure they give you enough days off, even a weekend here or there, you can take whole weekend trips,” Kiyoko said, blabbering about some nonsense, Nezumi had no idea what.

            “What are you talking about?” Nezumi asked mildly. He yawned, lifted his muffin-free hand to cover his mouth.

            “Shion. I’m talking about Shion.”

            Nezumi looked around for a trashcan for his muffin. “Since when did I need your permission to see Shion?”

            “So you will? You’ll still visit him?”

            Nezumi pushed his hair out of his eyes. Glanced at his agent. “Yeah. Sure. I’ll visit him, the love of my life, every moment I get. I’ll return to his side like an obedient puppy, and when I’m not there, my heart will hunger, my days will be dark, my life will be lifeless. Is that good?”

            Kiyoko frowned. “Don’t be an asshole. This isn’t for the press. It’s for my concern for your happiness.”

            “I didn’t hire you to be concerned for my happiness,” Nezumi replied, taking another bite from his muffin because there was nothing else to do with it. “Have they got trashcans on this set?”

            “You didn’t hire me at all, your director did because you’re unknown, and he needed me to get you on the map.”

            “You did that excellently,” Nezumi muttered dryly.

            Kiyoko leaned forward. “Nezumi. I had nothing to do with the information on your past being released – ”

            “Look, I’ve got a five-minute break before I have to get back in that room with those idiots and read lines for this movie that carries out a completely inaccurate portrayal of figure skating. If you’re concerned for my happiness, you’ll stop wasting my time.”

            Kiyoko pushed her glasses up her nose. “Why’d you even sign on for this, Nezumi? You hate it.”

            “Why’d you stalk Shion and I with your cameras? It’s a job.”

            “I like my job. You despise yours. You were making good enough money at the theater, and maybe it wasn’t this kind of paycheck, but you loved it, and you were spectacular at it, and you shouldn’t have left.”

            “You want me to quit? Won’t that fuck you over?”

            “I don’t want you to quit, Nezumi, I want you to think about why it is you’re doing what you’re doing. No one is screwing up your life but you, have you considered that? Your past sucked, and I know you don’t want my pity, but you’ve got it anyway. It sucked. But your present and the rest of your life don’t have to be miserable, that’s your own choice. But fine, tell everyone who tries to do something good by you to fuck themselves, see where that gets you,” Kiyoko snapped, then stalked off in a huff, rather dramatic in Nezumi’s opinion, she was spending far too much time on the set.

            Nezumi watched her, lifting his muffin to take another bite. It tasted nothing like those Karan made, but Nezumi knew he’d get used to it.

*

“I could visit Tokyo sometimes. I like the city. And even though I’ll have a stricter training regimen, I’ll have days off, it wouldn’t be impossible,” Shion said, playing with Nezumi’s fingers.

            They laid on Shion’s bed, side-by-side on their backs. Shion held one of Nezumi’s hands in both of his just to touch him. Examined his fingers one by one. Long with tiny square stubs for fingernails.

            “Shion,” Nezumi said quietly.

            Shion turned his head. They’d thrown the pillows off the bed at some point. Were naked on only the mattress. The blankets had been shoved to the foot of the bed, and a corner of the fitted sheet had loosened from the mattress, was bunched under Shion’s shoulder.

            “I’m not asking you for a relationship,” Shion insisted, and he watched Nezumi close his eyes.

            “Then what are you asking for?”

            Shion laid Nezumi’s hand over his chest, above his heartbeat. He wanted Nezumi to feel how steady it was, how solid and loud. “More of this. Of being together.”

            “That’s a relationship.”

            “So?” Shion asked, hearing his voice turn defensive.

            They had three days left. It was Wednesday afternoon, and Nezumi’s last official lesson was on Friday. He’d be leaving on Saturday.

            “So that’s not what I want.”

            “What do you want?” Shion demanded.

            Nezumi still hadn’t moved his hand from Shion’s chest. “I want you to let this end.”

            “Why do you want that?” Shion leaned up on his arm. Nezumi’s hand fell from his chest, touched the bed. The fitted sheet lowered even further, baring more of the mattress.

            Nezumi opened his eyes. Looked at Shion in a tired way, but they were both tired.

            They’d skipped that day’s lesson. Stayed on Shion’s bed and fucked instead. Shion didn’t know what time it was and didn’t care to. The air inside his room was stuffy, musky. He felt sticky from his sweat and Nezumi’s sweat. He didn’t care to ever move.

            “I don’t want you to be a part of my life,” Nezumi finally said, his voice clear and without hesitation, and Shion sat up.

            “You’re a fucking asshole,” Shion muttered, felt Nezumi’s hand around his wrist. It was stiflingly warm, almost hot.

            “Shion. Come on. Don’t do this. I know you understand.”

            “I don’t,” Shion argued, pulling his wrist free, not standing up because he was too tired to, settled on staring at the dresser against the wall.

            Nezumi would have to take his clothes from the drawers. Shion couldn’t even remember what clothing he’d had in those drawers previous to emptying them months before.

            He felt the mattress moving beneath him. Nezumi’s fingers on his cheek, and Shion let the man turn his head.

            Nezumi looked at him seriously. “If you need me to say it out loud for you, I can do that,” he said slowly, his eyes moving between Shion’s, and Shion inhaled deeply, felt himself nodding.

            He could see when Nezumi swallowed.

            “It has nothing to do with you. I guess I’m just a cliché, right? My past messed me up. I don’t trust people not to leave, so I don’t let them, and I feel safer that way. I like to be alone, Shion.” Nezumi spoke each word as if it took effort. As if he was forcing himself to say this, and Shion knew that he was, knew that he was because Shion had asked him to.

            “You like to be with me,” Shion said, arguing even though he knew it wasn’t fair.

            Nezumi dropped his hand from Shion’s cheek. “Do you have to do this?” he asked, sounding more strained than frustrated.

            “Are you content to just let yourself be this cliché, then? Don’t you want to be more than that?” Shion asked.

            Nezumi laid back down on the bed. Closed his eyes and pushed his warm fingers into his own bangs, held them on top of his head. “Can’t you just give up? Do you have to be so stubborn? Does everything have to be an argument?”

            “I’d rather argue with you than accept that you’re fine to let your past define you. That doesn’t sound like you at all.”

            Nezumi groaned, muttered something under his breath that Shion couldn’t make out.

            Shion leaned closer to him. “I don’t need a contract to force me to be with you. I’ll stay without one. I can promise you any amount of time that will stop you from worrying.”

            Nezumi opened his eyes again, but he didn’t look at Shion, just stared at the ceiling. “And I’m supposed to just trust your word,” he said quietly.

            Shion lowered down onto the mattress again, leaned over Nezumi so that Nezumi couldn’t look away from him, so that his view of the ceiling was prevented.

            Nezumi looked at Shion in parts. Shion could see how Nezumi looked first at his lips, then his hair, then his scar, then his eyelashes, then his eyes.

            “I know you must trust me. You’re telling me these things, about what you’re scared of, about what you’re worried about,” Shion reminded.

             Nezumi’s gaze was light, kept flitting around Shion’s face, and Shion was scared to death that Nezumi was memorizing him.

            Shion didn’t want to be memorized. Would be right here for Nezumi to look at whenever he needed.

            “I’m telling you these things because it doesn’t matter what I say to you. After our last lesson, I’ll never see you again. I don’t need to hide anything from you. Soon I won’t know you anymore. You’ll be a stranger,” Nezumi said, his voice completely even.

            Shion sucked in a breath. Held it and stared down at Nezumi, waiting for his flitting eyes to stop, but they never did.

            “You’ll always know me,” Shion managed, releasing his breath in a sudden gush, feeling as his lungs deflated, feeling as his body curled around the hollow.

            Nezumi didn’t say anything. Reached up, and his fingers were slipping up the back of Shion’s neck, weaving up into his hair, then were gone again. Nezumi’s hand dropped to the mattress.

            Shion felt like crying. He tried not to.

*

Nezumi skipped rehearsal on Saturday. He did not go into Tokyo, but he did not tell Shion.

            He woke when Shion was already at his training session with his mother. He laid in Shion’s bed for several minutes, then sat up.

            He showered and made himself breakfast, eating his French toast while standing up and looking around at the plants crowding Shion’s kitchen.

            He did his dishes, dried them, replaced them in Shion’s cupboard, then returned to Shion’s bedroom. He went straight to the dresser, opened the top right drawer first, and emptied out his clothes. He emptied the middle right drawer after that. He got his toothbrush from the bathroom and took his phone charger from the outlet behind Shion’s nightstand.

            He walked through the other rooms, certain he would come across more of his belongings, but there was nothing else.

            Nezumi put his possessions in one of the plastic grocery bags Shion stored under his sink. He took them to his hotel room where he never stayed, but it was still paid for by the film company, would be in his name until that very day. He transferred his clothing and toothbrush and phone charger from the grocery bag to his duffel bag.

            He left his hotel room and went to the ballet studio. He stretched and did some bar work. After a few hours, he left the studio and waved to Nagisa on the way out.

            The train to Tokyo left at nine, but there was an earlier one at half past five. Nezumi was supposed to have dinner with Shion after his training session. Shion had made him promise he would stay for that.

            Nezumi walked to the train station. Kiyoko had arranged for a car to take Nezumi from Shion’s apartment to the station for the nine o’ clock train. Nezumi pulled out his phone.

            It was four twenty-five. Shion was supposed to finish his session at five, but today he’d asked his mother if they could cut the lesson an hour early. He’d originally planned on taking the day off, but Nezumi had convinced him out of it, and Shion had caved after Nezumi had promised to stay for dinner, to take the nine o’ clock train instead of the one that left at five thirty.

            Nezumi sent two texts. His first to Kiyoko –

            _Cancel the car to the station._

            His second to Shion –

            _I’m at the station. I’m leaving on the five thirty. Come say goodbye._

            He turned off his phone and pocketed it, then sat on a bench facing the empty rails.

            The clock on the wall to the left of Nezumi read 5:21 when Nezumi heard his name being shouted –

            “Nezumi!”

            Nezumi stood up to watch Shion run towards him. He was holding a tiny cactus and out of breath. His hair looked wet.

            “You asshole,” Shion breathed, once he’d made it to Nezumi, and Nezumi watched him double over, his cactus-free hand resting on his knee while he caught his breath.

            “Why are you holding a cactus?” Nezumi asked.

            “I was in the shower when you texted. You’re lucky I cut it short. What if I’d missed you?  You complete asshole,” Shion continued around his gasps. He straightened up and clutched his side.

            “Did you run all the way here?”

            “Of course not! I took a car, but I ran from the entrance of the station to the platform.”

            “You didn’t have to be so dramatic.”

            “Me? Why didn’t you answer your phone? I hate you, I can’t breathe, I hate you,” Shion gasped, pushing his hair from his forehead.

            Nezumi looked up from him at the clock again. “You’ve got two minutes to explain the cactus.”

            “There’s nothing to explain,” Shion managed, rubbing his forehead with the back of his wrist. “It’s for you, obviously. To remember me by.” Shion thrust out the plant.

            Nezumi stared at it without taking it. It was the same one Shion had offered him months before. Round and squat and yellowish. “You brought me the ugliest one.”

            “I think it suits you.”

            “That’s rude.”

            Shion smiled amidst his gasps, his breathless smile that Nezumi had seen first in the videos his agent had given him – _This is the guy we want to train you. He’s the best in the world. If he agrees to give you skating lessons for this film, he could change your life. His name is Shion._

            Shion was interrupting his own smile with an explanation. “It’s prickly on the outside, like you are,” he said, smiling even wider now.

            Nezumi frowned, still did not take the thing. “I’m not prickly. What’s on the inside?”

            He expected Shion to say something corny and ridiculous, but the man instead looked as if he was considering the question seriously, his eyebrows pushing together, his smile faltering.

            “I don’t know. I’ve never cut open a cactus,” he said, sounding thoroughly curious, almost regretful that he hadn’t previously engaged in cactus dissection – but then, just like that, in a flash his smile was back.

            Nezumi wanted to reach out. Capture it in his fingers and keep it forever.

            “It’s full of secrets, I guess,” Shion was saying around that smile. “But that’s just like you too.” He was laughing then, and Nezumi almost couldn’t stand it.

            He turned away, looked at the empty tracks. Wished they were full. Wished he was on the train already and going, going, going.

            “What would you do if I came to Tokyo? If I tried to find you?” Shion was asking, and Nezumi kept looking at the tracks so he’d see the train the moment it rolled in, so he wouldn’t miss it.

            “I’d tell you to go home, Shion. Move on.”

            Nezumi could hear Shion’s exhale.

            “I guess I shouldn’t come. I’d hate it if you said something like that to me,” Shion said quietly, and Nezumi accidentally looked at him again.

            “You’ll be fine,” Nezumi said, and Shion’s expression shifted to something Nezumi couldn’t name, but only for a second until Shion was smiling again, just a small smile this time.

            Nezumi didn’t mind. He’d take all of Shion’s easy smiles. Easy like they had a reason to be there. Easy like Shion felt nothing but happiness, nothing but where he was supposed to be.

            “You’ll take the plant, right?”

            Nezumi didn’t want it. He reached out, curled his fingers around the small pot. It was a dark red and very smooth. Shion let go of it.

            “Make sure you put it in sunlight. And you’re supposed to water them once every seven to ten days, but mine seem to survive without water,” Shion said, a crease appearing between his eyebrows, a sudden lack of understanding as to how his plants had been surviving despite his lack of care.

            Nezumi exhaled through his smirk. “Safu has been watering yours, genius.”

            Shion’s eyes widened. “She has? Oh.”

            The train announced itself loudly, a rattling of wheels on rail that Nezumi was well-accustomed to, boarding this same train several times a week.

            Even so, it sounded louder than usual. Impossible to ignore.

            Nezumi didn’t look at it. He was looking at Shion, who had turned to watch the train arrive, kept watching as it groaned to a stop.

            Nezumi preferred to watch Shion’s profile. The scar on his cheek. The white of his hair trickling just barely over the top of his ear. White eyelashes. Soft skin.

            Shion looked back at Nezumi. He reached his hands up, rubbed his eyes. “Sorry,” he whispered, so that Nezumi could not pretend not to notice.

            “Good luck on your quad axel,” Nezumi said, not knowing why he said it. He’d never in his life believed in luck.

            He felt a little jolted. A little jittery. His pulse shaken loose from its normal path and rattling around his body, unbound.

            Shion’s smile was wavering now. Small and shaky. “Thanks,” he breathed. “I’d say the same for you and your film, but I know you’ll be amazing.”

            Shion glanced again at the train. Nezumi didn’t want to look at it.

            He turned the other way. Lifted his duffel from the bench from its strap. Pulled it over his shoulder.

            “Let’s not do a goodbye kiss, okay?” Shion asked, before Nezumi could say anything.

            Nezumi nodded. He hadn’t intended on kissing this man goodbye.

            He looked at Shion a moment more, then turned from him, walked towards the train, didn’t know if Shion was following him until he heard his name being called.

            “Nezumi.”

            He didn’t want to turn around. He was at the back of the crowd of the last people boarding the train. He turned anyway.

            “You can’t be like me. You have to remember to water it, okay?” Shion said, and his voice was a whisper, and Nezumi had no idea what he was talking about at all until he remembered the ugly cactus in his hand.

            “I’ll remember,” Nezumi said, while Shion rubbed at his eyes again, then pressed his palm against his lips, didn’t drop it so that Nezumi couldn’t see if there was a last smile there.

            He knew there wasn’t, of course, but he still wanted to check.

            Nezumi turned away from Shion again. Boarded the train without interference this time, keeping an eye on the cactus he held, careful not to walk too close to anyone so that he wouldn’t prick them.

            There were no open seats, so Nezumi stood, reached up to hold a strap hanging from the top bar. The train doors closed. Nezumi kept an eye on the cactus even though nobody stood close to him.

*


	8. Chapter 8

The night after Nezumi left, Shion went to the rink, stood on the ice in his skates, then skated right back off the rink.

            He returned to his apartment. He went to bed. He laid and wondered if he’d ever fall asleep with the lack of Nezumi beside him, and it was hours until he did, bundled in blankets that he’d had to pull out of a closet.

            Once he fell asleep, he slept for twenty hours straight. Woke groggy and uncertain, his body feeling heavy. The first thing he did was use the bathroom, then shower. Then checked the time – his phone said it was a quarter past five, and Shion stared at the numbers for some time before realizing it was Sunday afternoon.

            He had five texts and two missed calls from Safu. There were no other notifications, but he didn’t expect there to be.

            Shion poured himself a bowl of cereal. He ate it standing against the stove even though there was a small space cleared on the kitchen counter where Nezumi’s cactus had been.

            Shion placed his empty bowl in the sink. Chose the biggest knife from the wooden knife-block beside the toaster. Looked around his kitchen, then selected a plant from the top of his fridge.

            It was a small, squat cactus, much like the one Shion had given Nezumi but that the spikes on this one were longer, not so much short and fuzzy but sharp and dangerous-looking.

            Shion set the cactus on the small space freed on his counter. He braced the knife on top of the plant, held it by the pot, and cut downward in slow, sliding motions. Perfectly in half.

            Shion didn’t know what he’d been expecting. The inside was yellowish and squishy looking. Shion touched it with the tip of his fingertip. It felt the way it looked. Yellowish. Squishy.

            Shion placed down the knife. Stared at the broken cactus. He couldn’t believe he’d just cut open this plant. He didn’t know what he was thinking. Regret filled him, strong and sudden, tightening his throat, burning his eyes.

            He took deep breaths. He knew he wasn’t crying over the cactus.

            He looked around his kitchen, at all of the plants he always forgot to water, the plants that would have died if it hadn’t been for Safu.

            He picked up his phone, texted her –

            _Can you meet me at my place in a half hour?_

            He pocketed his phone, grabbed his keys, shoved his feet in his shoes, and left his apartment. He drove straight to the hardware store, purchased four medium-sized cardboard boxes and a roll of packing tape, and returned to his apartment.

            By the time he carried the flattened boxes up to his apartment, he found Safu in front of it, just putting her key into his door.

            “Safu,” he said, and she turned.

            “Why didn’t you reply to my texts? And what are you carrying?”

            “Can you help me?” Shion asked, while Safu opened his door and Shion carried the flattened boxes and tape inside.

            “With what? Are you moving? Maybe you should think about this, have you eaten anything? What have you been doing all day? I understand that you’d be upset, but I can’t help you move out of your apartment until you give it a few days and really think about why you’re – ”

            “I’m not moving,” Shion interrupted, setting down the boxes. “First, we have to put these boxes together, and then let’s fill them with the plants. Four should be enough, right? I can run back and get more if not.”

            “Fill them with – What? What are you doing?” Safu asked, walking slowly into Shion’s apartment behind him.

            Shion wrangled with one of the flattened boxes, propping it up and figuring out what creases he needed to fold in order to construct it. “I’m getting rid of the plants.”

            “Your plants? Why? What are you doing with them? Oh my god, is that plant cut in half? What happened?” Safu asked, heading to the counter and staring down at the cut cactus.

            Shion had assembled a box, started on a second. “I wanted to see what was inside.”

            “You wanted – ? Shion, I have to tell you, your behavior is seriously concerning me. Have you slept?”

            “Twenty hours,” Shion confirmed.

            “You slept for twenty hours?”

            “Can you hand me that scissors?”

            Safu walked forward slowly, offered Shion the scissors, which he used to cut the end of the tape, finishing the second box.

            “If you want to start packing the plants, I’ll finish the last two boxes, then help you. Do you think I should have gotten bubble wrap? They should be fine, right? Maybe we can put paper towels between them.”

            “What are you planning on doing with them?” Safu asked, sounding hesitant.

            Shion straightened up. Saw that his friend was concerned, and he hadn’t meant to be concerning. He felt extremely calm. Certain that what he was doing was what was right. “I haven’t figured it out yet. For now, I was thinking we could just go around and try to give them out for free, to people in the apartment building, then to shops in town.”

            Shion was aware, as he started on the third box, that Safu had not started packing the plants, was still staring at him.

            He finished the box before glancing up. “What?”

            “Are you okay?”

            “I don’t know.”

            Safu pushed her hair off her shoulder. It was longer than Shion had ever seen it. He thought she looked pretty, but he always had.

            “I guess it’s a good thing that you’re being honest,” she murmured, looking at Shion closely.

            He knew she was inspecting him. Signs of his heartache. He wondered what she was cataloguing, what parts of him showed the way he felt in his chest, like his heart was shrinking, like the cavity encompassed by his ribs was much too large, far too empty.

            “Why don’t you want your plants anymore? They shouldn’t be a reminder of him. He didn’t have anything to do with them,” Safu said, her curiosity only just evident underneath her concern.

            Shion shrugged. “I don’t know. They’re not a reminder of him. I just don’t know why I kept all of them. I shouldn’t have. I don’t even take care of them. Nezumi told me you’ve been watering them.”

            “I don’t mind.”

            “But that’s not right. If they’re mine, I need to take care of them, and if I can’t take care of them, they shouldn’t be mine.”

            “They’re just plants, Shion. You like them. You should keep them. It doesn’t have to be an ethical dilemma,” Safu said gently.     

            Shion looked around his kitchen. He couldn’t remember what it looked like without the tiny pots covering every surface. He looked back at Safu. “Will you help me give them away?” he asked.

            He watched Safu sigh. Tuck her hair behind her ears. Nod after half a minute. “Of course. Of course, I’ll help you, Shion.”

            Shion finished assembling the last box, and together, he and Safu packed them with every plant in his kitchen but the one he’d cut in half, which he bagged in four plastic grocery bags, then placed carefully at the bottom of his trash.

            Safu asked him if he was sure he didn’t want to keep just one, but Shion shook his head. If he couldn’t remember to water them when they were everywhere, he thought it impossible that he’d ever remember if there was only one.

*

Nezumi started skipping rehearsals.

            It was not something he’d ever done at the theater. He had been committed to his productions at the theater. They were important. In film, rehearsals were pointless. If he messed up a scene, he could simply redo it. There was no need for practice. It didn’t require effort, and Nezumi preferred not to waste his time.

            With his free time, Nezumi went to the ballet studio for actors of the New National Theatre. Occasionally, he saw a few of his old castmates who asked him how the movie business was, who joked and asked him for his autograph, who pretended to be honored by his presence.

            They were not cruel, though, and Nezumi was surprised they seemed supportive of him. He couldn’t remember speaking much to these people during production, but he must have. They seemed to know a lot about him, and he realized he knew about them – which of them were married, had kids, were going to school on the side, had moved from far outside Tokyo or had lived in the city all their lives.

            It was not information Nezumi had known he had, but he felt comforted to have it. A tether to these people, to his life that felt like a previous life, as if he were far apart from it now, as if he could not go back.

            Kiyoko called to yell at Nezumi constantly. He often came home from the studio to find her inside his apartment with a key he couldn’t recall having made for her, demanding to know why he’d skipped another rehearsal. The fourth time this occurred, he fired her only to be reminded that he hadn’t hired her in the first place – his director had.

            Nezumi put up with the intrusions. They exhausted him, and Nezumi always preferred to go to bed when he was completely exhausted, could count on falling asleep immediately without time to think about how large his mattress seemed to have gotten since he’d last slept on it.

*

Shion only successfully integrated his quad axel into his free skate a week before the Asian Open Figure Skating Trophy, which was to be held from the thirtieth of July to the second of August in Manila. Shion would be flying to the Philippines a day before the competition.

            For the next week, he practiced constantly, still only managing to pull off the quad axel at the end of his free skate around a third of the time. He considered, as Safu still assumed he was doing, replacing a first-half quad with the axel rather than doing it in the second half of his program, knowing he’d have more stamina if he did so, knowing it was more likely the quad would be successful.

            Even though he considered this, he never practiced it this way, and when he was training with his mother, he couldn’t practice it at all.

            He was going through a run of his free skate the day before he was to fly to Manila. His mother had given him the day off from practice, telling him to rest. He’d set up his phone to video tape himself, leant it against the side of the rink. This time, he nailed his quad, but he didn’t feel the success of it.

            He felt exhausted. Fell to his knees the moment his music finished. Pressed his hands to the ice and watched the mist of his breaths.

            “You should be taking the day to rest.”

            Shion’s exhale faltered. He looked up, saw his mother at the side of the rink.

            “How did you know I was here?” he asked, instead of asking if his mother had seen his program. He forced himself to his feet but felt weak. To do the quad axel as the last quad in his program was more than he could take, and he knew that. That was why he needed to keep practicing. Get stronger. Learn to handle this exertion on his body.

            “Safu came into the bakery looking for you. If you weren’t with her, I assumed I could find you here,” Karan said, not addressing the quad axel, and Shion thought maybe she hadn’t seen it after all.

            Shion skated towards her. Was still catching his breath. Could see his mother’s eyes examining his face, his body.

            “That was a quad axel,” she said, when he stopped in front of her and held on to the edge of the wall around the rink.

            Shion tightened his grip on the edge of the wall. “Mom,” he started, but he couldn’t think of what to say.

            “I’ve never seen it performed. Most of the world has never seen a quad axel.”

            Shion was glad he was still breathing hard. Used this as an excuse to not reply, to just inhale and exhale, large breaths that seared his chest.

            Karan’s eyebrows were creased. Shion could see her sadness, and it became even harder to breathe, as if he were still skating, as if his program was not yet done.

            “I want to be impressed, honey. I want to tell you I’m proud of you. But I already knew you were so talented, I always knew you could do this jump no one has ever done before. I didn’t need to see it to have it proved to me. All I see is what you’re doing to yourself. You’re hardly standing. Shion, you cannot do this. I know I’m just your coach, I’m just your mother, you don’t have to listen to me, but I’m asking you to leave this jump out. You don’t need it in order to be incredible.”

            His mother’s voice was too earnest, too fervent. Bordering on desperate, and Shion hated listening to it.

            “I can do it, Mom. I just need to keep working on it, and maybe I’ll leave it out of the Asian Open, but it’ll be ready for the Grand Prix. The Rostelecom Cup isn’t until the end of October, I have time to get it right – ”

            “You don’t have the stamina for it,” Karan interrupted, her voice still insistent but harder now, angrier.

            “I just did it!” Shion said, too loudly, hating that he’d yelled at his mother, but he was angry at her, wanted her to be proud of him, believe in him, support him, reassure him because he didn’t know if he could do it, he needed someone to tell him he could, that it was worth it to keep trying.

            “How often are you landing it with full rotations? I know it can’t be always, and you don’t know what will happen in competition. If you can’t do it consistently in your own rink without an audience, you’re risking too much trying to pull it off in competition. Your form is loose, it passes as an axel, but if it were a triple you would never be satisfied with it. Shion, you don’t do things halfway. Your steps after the jump were sloppy, your exhaustion is obvious, you didn’t look like you, honey.”

            “I just need to practice, I need your help. You’re my coach, you’re supposed to help me!” Shion argued back, his eyes hot, refusing to cry in front of his mother, refusing to cry anymore.

            Nezumi had been gone for nearly a month, and this had nothing to do with him anyway.

            “As your coach, I can’t support this. You’re such a beautiful skater, but that program was not graceful, it wasn’t beautiful. The quad axel was amazing only because it’s never been skated before, but past the novelty of it, it would never cut it as a jump in competition. I won’t argue with you about this, Shion, I don’t want you to do this.”

            Shion shook his head. “Mom, I’ve worked so hard. I practiced it so much, I can do it, just help me and I can – ”

            “I care about your career, you know I do, but more than that I need you to be safe and responsible, and this is neither. I won’t support this jump in your program, certainly not in the second half. I thought you were smarter than this, Shion. I thought you knew to listen to your body and realize when you were putting it through too much strain. You won’t last until the Final in December if you keep this up, you have to know that.”

            Shion pressed the bottoms of his palms to his eyes. Tried to make his breaths even. Dropped his hands. “I have to do it. I have to do it.”

            “Shion,” Karan started, and her hand was on Shion’s cheek.

            Shion wanted to flinch away from her touch. Wasn’t used to wanting to jerk away from his mother. Wasn’t used to wanting anything but her comfort.

            “I don’t know what to do,” she said after a pause, her voice much softer now. “I thought if I gave you space, that would be the best I could do to help you. But it hasn’t helped, has it?”

            Shion moved from his mother’s touch.

            “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he mumbled.

            He looked away from his mother, down at his skates. Stared at them and knew his mother was still looking at him.

            “Honey. Listen to me. Life doesn’t always go the way you expect it to. When I thought my ice skating career had finally begun, I found out I was pregnant with you, and everything I’d ever thought my life would be instantly changed in that very moment.”

            Shion looked up. Saw his mother looking at him with warmth in every crease of her features.

            “I could have continued onto the Worlds. I told my coach I was going to, that I would be fine to. I would not even have been four months pregnant, and I knew I could do it. There was talk at that time of cancelling the Worlds in the years to come, and figure skaters knew it might be one of the last years to participate in it.”

            “But you chose not to, in the end. Not to compete.”

            Karan offered a small smile. “I put up a fuss. I was young at that time, like you are now. In the end, my coach couldn’t make the decision for me, I had to do it myself. And after a lot of thought, I chose, like you said, not to compete. It might not have mattered if I had. But if I fell on the ice, I didn’t know what it would do to you, and I couldn’t risk that.”

            Shion tried to connect his mother’s words to his own life, but couldn’t. He wasn’t risking anything with the quad axel. If he fell, he’d hurt only his own scores, but how was that comparable?

            “What I’m trying to say, hon, is that you came into my life when I didn’t expect you. I thought I was supposed to be the next greatest figure skater, I thought competing in the World Figure Skating Championship would be the best thing I would do in my entire life, but the way my life turned out is more amazing than I could have ever thought possible.”

            Shion could see his mother’s eyes searching him as if looking for understanding, but Shion didn’t understand, didn’t know what she was trying to tell him.

            “You’re turning twenty-six years old in a few months. Do you know how young that is? The window for a figure skating career closes at such a young age that figure skaters forget they have the rest of their lives to live after their skating careers. There is so much time, honey. I don’t want you to forget that. I don’t want you to feel like you need to do and have everything right now.”

            “You’re saying I still have time to do the quad axel in a different season,” Shion said quietly.

            “That is true, but I’m not only talking about the quad, honey. You have a lifetime to experience beauty. It doesn’t all have to come at once, and if you can’t have right now all that you want, it doesn’t mean you’ll never have it. You’re pushing yourself so hard for this quad as if time is running out, but it’s not, I promise you, it’s not.”

            “But you’re not talking about the quad,” Shion said, just to clarify, and his mother laughed gently.

            “There’s more to life than figure skating. I know you learned that recently,” Karan said, and there was a knowing lilt to her words that had Shion’s skin feeling hot.

            He knew, of course, that his mother must have known something about his relationship with Nezumi. A picture of their kiss was rather publicized, after all. But he didn’t know how to talk about Nezumi with his mother. He didn’t know how to talk about Nezumi at all.

            In his silence, Karan lifted her hand again, and Shion didn’t mind this time when she cupped his chin, her thumb skating over his scar.

            “I love you more than anything in this world, and I hate to think that you might ever feel upset, that anything or anyone could ever break your heart. But honey, I know this, a broken heart is never the end of the story. There is always something that comes next. And even if it feels like the end of the world right now, it isn’t.”

            Shion blinked quickly. Nodded and swallowed, and after a minute, his mother dropped her hand again from his face. “Will you be angry with me if I do the quad axel?” he asked, once he felt as though he could speak.

            She tilted her head. “I won’t be angry with you, no. Of course I understand why you want to, I was a competitive figure skater too. But I wish you would trust me when I tell you it’s not the right thing for you right now.”

            Shion nodded, but he didn’t promise his mother anything.

            He didn’t know what he was going to do, and when he tried to think about what might happen in his future, nothing at all felt sure or certain.

*

Nezumi didn’t have the channel that the Asian Open Figure Skating Trophy would be broadcasted on, so he found a live feed online and watched it on his phone.

            On the day Shion was skating, Nezumi was supposed to be shooting a scene. Instead, Nezumi was in his apartment, sitting against an armrest of his couch, his knees pulled up and his phone rested against them.

            He’d already blocked Kiyoko and his director on his phone so that the broadcast wouldn’t be interrupted by their calls.

            _And now, the most anticipated competitor of the event. Shion will be skating the free skate routine he has planned for the Grand Prix Final, and we all know of the rumored quad axel we might be witnessing tonight. Around the world, figure skaters and fans are holding their breaths, anticipating a jump that has never before been performed in competition. Even if the quad axel does not make it into tonight’s performance, I think we can agree Shion’s program will be a sight to behold. His music…_ The Rules for Lovers – _a song that brings to mind the gold medalist’s recent tabloid appearances featuring the ballet dancer and burgeoning actor Nezumi, who has been training under Shion since the start of the year. We’ll be seeing now if this new coaching stint and possible romance have proved a distraction or a source of inspiration for Japan’s beloved figure skater._

Shion was in the center of the ice now. His costume was silver and black, not incredibly flashy. His hair was partly slicked back, but strands had loosened, drifted over his forehead. The music started, and Nezumi watched Shion take a breath, then begin to skate, his steps long and slow at first as he glided over the ice.

            Nezumi counted the jumps, paying no mind to the announcer’s commentary. A quad Lutz. A back-to-back jump, a toe loop into a triple flip. Then a quad Salchow. Another triple. A double. Another back-to-back – double axel, triple toe. A step sequence, a second camel position spin, more spins, more steps, more jumps, and then Shion was skating in a long curve, and Nezumi could see his chest heaving.

            The song was ending. The next jump would be his last – a quad axel. Shion had been incredible for the entirety of the program, and the announcer’s exclamations ranged from _Perfection!_ to _The most incredible quad flip this rink has ever seen!_

            Shion was beautiful, and the entire world could see it, but Nezumi had seen it up close, right there, on the same rink, the same ice, his hands on Shion’s back, feeling the arch of it as Shion instructed – _This is what the position should look like. Should feel like. Now you do it, Nezumi. Just like this._

The announcer was silent now. The music was loud. Nezumi had his phone nearly up to his face, did not realize this. Shion jumped.

            A triple Lutz. He landed perfectly. The announcer was speaking, but Nezumi didn’t hear him. He was sitting up, no longer bracing back against the armrest of his couch. Gripping his phone hard, then relaxing his fingers, watching Shion come to a stop in the center of the rink, his smile breathless.

            Nezumi’s chest hurt. His exhale shuddered. Flowers were thrown onto the ice. There had not been the rumored quad axel, but there didn’t need to be.

            Shion was amazing, and his program had been flawless. Nobody could have looked away from him, and even now Nezumi couldn’t, watched as Shion bowed to the crowd that roared from his phone screen. The applause was deafening. Nobody was disappointed that there had not been a quad axel because disappointment was impossible.

            _Shion has exceeded all of our expectations, once again! An incredible sight, a beautiful skater! His best program yet, my heart is still pounding so loud, can you hear it through the mike? The Asian Open Figure Skating Trophy winners will be announced tomorrow night, but no one watching Shion has any doubt as to who will be taking home the gold for yet another year. He is the best this world has ever seen, and every time I see him on stage I have no doubt that I am witnessing history being made!_

            Shion was waving at the crowd. Skating to the edge of the rink, and an interviewer was there to meet him, a young girl with a microphone and glitter around her eyes.

            “Shion! That was incredible! Tell us, why do you think that’s been your most amazing program yet? What’s changed for you? Could it be the rumors of your blooming love life coming out in your skating?”

            Shion reached his fingers into his hair. Pushed it back, wet with sweat. “Thank you,” he said into the microphone around his breaths. “Your compliments are very kind. And I don’t want to disappoint everyone with impressions otherwise, but my love life is not nearly as interesting as everyone seems to think,” he said, smiling still.

            “What about the actor you were coaching, Nezumi? Is he here in Manila? Is he watching you right now?”

            Shion looked at the camera, and Nezumi watched him back, knew Shion could handle himself in front of the press, he’d been doing it for years, he was a natural at it.

            “Nezumi could not be in Manila right now, as he’s shooting a feature film that’s due to come out next year. It will be called _Hearts of Ice_ , and I hope my fans will all see it. If Nezumi is in it, it’s sure to be incredible. And even though he is not here, I have no doubt of his support in me.”

            “What do you think he would say to you if he were here?”

            At this, Shion laughed into his exhale. Nezumi tried to turn up the volume of his phone, but it was already at its highest. “I think he would tell me to stop talking about him.”

            The girl thanked Shion, congratulated him again, and then Shion was not being showed any longer, it was some commentator that Nezumi had no desire to listen to.

            He shut off the live broadcast, stared at the screen of his phone, thought about texting Shion congratulations.

            He didn’t. Instead, Nezumi called his agent, listened to the phone ring, and thought about Shion’s breathless laugh. How happy he looked, as if he’d never known any other emotion at all.

*

For the Grand Prix Final, Shion would be competing first in the Rostelecom Cup in Moscow at the end of October, then Skate America in New York at the end of November.

            Shion had not given up on incorporating his quad axel into his free skate program, but he wanted to wait until he was ready. And if he wasn’t ready this season, there was always the next one.

            “It’s not quitting,” he told Safu while they iced cupcakes in his mother’s bakery. “I’m doing what’s best for me right now.”

            “Shion, you don’t have to keep justifying your decision to me. You don’t owe me or anyone an explanation. I’m so proud of you. Your program in the Asian Open was incredible.”

            Shion still felt the need to explain. While he knew this was what was best right now, he still felt an obligation to do the quad axel that he could not explain. Sometimes at night, when he had trouble sleeping in his empty bed, he would return to the rink and skate quad axels until his legs were sore. He was landing them nearly one hundred percent of the time when it was just the axel alone.

            It didn’t feel like enough.

            After he and Safu finished icing the cupcakes, they left the kitchen on Karan’s ushering to have pie in the front room. They sat at a table by the window, and Shion scanned the bakery, feeling reassured by the presence of two of his old plants.

            His succulents had been distributed around the town. Nearly every shop and restaurant had at least one. Even Safu’s clinic had one in the reception room. The ballet studio had three, all cacti. Shion had given them gladly on one condition – that they would be watered and not neglected.

            “How are you feeling?” Safu asked, not an entirely unexpected question. She’d been asking it frequently, since the end of June.

            It was the last week of August. In just over a week more, Shion would turn twenty-six.

            “Good,” Shion answered, shuffling his pie around his plate. He dropped his fork, took a sip of tea.

            “I saw your interview from last week. You’d think they’d stop asking you about Nezumi by now,” she said.

            Shion shrugged. “Rumors take a long time to wear off. I could speed up the process if I got involved with someone else, probably.”

            Safu stared at him. “You want to get involved with someone else?”

            “No.”

            “I didn’t know you were over him.”

            “I’m not.”

            “I didn’t even think you’d consider going out with someone else yet,” Safu said, and Shion smiled wanly.

            “Safu, it was a joke. Not a real suggestion. I’m not going to get involved with anyone. I can’t anyway, I’m in the middle of a season.”

            “But if you weren’t in the middle of a season, you’d want to?” Safu pressed.

            Shion shook his head, laughed lightly. “Not at all. I’ll probably take ages to get over him. Do you think it’s pathetic?”

            Safu had been licking the side of her fork and put it down. “No,” she said gently. “I think you loved him a lot, and it’s okay to take your time to stop.”

            Shion looked down from her, at the remains of his pie on his plate. Cherry, his favorite from childhood. “What if I can’t? What if I can’t stop?”

            “It’s been two months, Shion, not even that. It will just take time,” Safu said, her voice soft.

            _What if I don’t want to stop loving him?_

            Shion didn’t say anything. Nodded at his plate, then looked back up at Safu. “Tell me about you. How’s the new guy doing at the clinic? Is he as promising as you thought?”

            At nights, when he skated his quads, Shion never looked at the edge of the rink. He let himself believe that Nezumi was still standing there, watching him, videotaping him on Shion’s phone. Shion skated better, imagining that Nezumi could see him, pretending that Nezumi couldn’t take his eyes off of him – not for a second, not for a breath.

*

Nezumi and his agent had been having the same argument for a month, and Nezumi, frankly, was getting bored of it.

            Kiyoko sighed in a way that seemed to exhaust more energy than was necessary. She held up both of her hands. “Nezumi. Please. I can’t keep doing this with you. You can’t get out of this contract. You signed onto this film, you can’t just quit, please just shoot your scenes, just get it done with. You never have to do another film, just finish this one, you don’t have a choice.”

            “I don’t really think I have to do anything,” Nezumi replied. He took a sip of his tea. Kiyoko had barged into his apartment rather unannounced, but that was nothing new these days.

            Even so, she’d come at a very early hour of the morning. She was lucky Nezumi had been at least wearing a pair of boxers when she’d stormed into his room.

            “And I’ll have to ask you to quit it with the early morning visits. What if I’d had a guest over?” Nezumi asked, while Kiyoko paced rapidly around his kitchen.     

            She’d refused the tea he’d offered her, which was a shame. Tea was supposed to be calming.

            “Don’t be ridiculous.” She abruptly stopped pacing, her glasses falling down her nose, and she shoved them back up in a way that made Nezumi worry she’d poke herself in the eye. “You need to get to the studio and start shooting your scenes. I can’t keep telling you this. You’re not a child, and I’m not your mother. This is enough, Nezumi.”

            Nezumi cupped his mug. “I’m pulling out of the film.”

            Kiyoko pressed her hand to her forehead. “Please stop saying that. For my sanity, Nezumi, you need to stop.”

            Nezumi considered his agent, who looked incredibly disheveled. He pitied her – he hadn’t put her in a good position, and he knew that. But he was never one to put others before himself. “Kiyoko. I’m sorry, but I can’t do this film.”

            “Yes, you can,” Kiyoko argued.

            “I don’t know what else to tell you.”

            Kiyoko pointed at Nezumi from the other side of his counter. “There are people counting on you. You can’t drop out of this film, Nezumi, you don’t have a choice. Your contract was binding. So much time and resources have been spent in consideration with you as the lead. They’ve already started shooting! This isn’t how the film industry works, you can’t just change your mind halfway through – ”

            “Weren’t you the one who told me to quit? Didn’t you say I should stop sabotaging my life and do what makes me happy?”

            “I was talking about Shion! Go marry Shion, don’t destroy my career! Nezumi, please, I know you hate this, but if you just shoot your scenes, I promise you, you never have to do another film. I know you can’t stand the press, but they’ve backed off, I’ll make sure they stay away from you. If you keep with this film till the end of production, I’ll keep every press camera out of a fifty-foot range of you at all times, I give you my word,” Kiyoko said desperately, nothing she hadn’t said before in the month since Nezumi had first told her he wanted out.

            “There are other actors, Kiyoko. And I know I haven’t been the best client. This should be a good thing for you.”

            “A good thing? I have to deal with the mess you’re making! I’m responsible for you, you’re my client! I helped get Shion to coach you – Do you know how much that cost? It was half the cost of production for this film paying for your goddamn lessons! If you break your contract, I’m telling you, the director is not going to let it go. You’ll be sued for more than you’re worth, you won’t be able to pay it back. You have no choice, are you listening to me, kid? You have no choice but to finish this film.”

            Nezumi took another sip of his tea. It warmed him completely. He didn’t care about the semantics of contracts, the chance of being sued. He wasn’t going to make his own life miserable anymore. He wasn’t going to keep thinking of happiness as an emotion to keep his distance from.

            He’d made up his mind, and he rarely let people change it.

*

Safu called Shion while he was scrubbing his shower.

            Shion pulled off his gloves and put his phone on speaker.

            “Hey,” he said, replacing his phone on the closed lid of his toilet seat and pulling back on his scrubbing gloves.

            “Have you seen the articles? Nezumi’s quitting the film.”

            Shion had stepped back inside his tub, but froze while holding his scrubbing brush half a foot from the tile. “What?”

            “Well, he’s trying to, I don’t know if it’s finalized yet. The article says he’s on contract, but there’s rumors that he’s trying to get out of it.”

            “Rumors don’t really mean anything,” Shion said slowly, staring at the tiles of his shower, sudsy and dripping.

            “I know. I just wanted to let you know, in case you hadn’t heard. Why do you think he would do that?”

            “He doesn’t like the film industry,” Shion replied, reaching out, starting to scrub again in a spot he hadn’t gotten to.

            “Why did he sign on for the film then?”

            “I don’t know.”

            “You got paid a lot to coach him, didn’t you? I doubt they’ll let him out of his contract easily. He doesn’t seem the type to be a quitter anyway, maybe these are just rumors after all,” Safu mused from the other line, and Shion stopped scrubbing.

            “It wouldn’t be quitting. It would be doing what’s best for him, like I did with my quad axel. How is it any different for him?”

            There was a slight pause. “Shion, you didn’t sign a contract. People aren’t depending on you to do this quad. He’s got a whole cast and crew expecting him to be in this film.”

            “There’s a thousand actors. They could get anyone. I was hired to stir publicity for the film, and the publicity won’t go away if Nezumi’s no longer in it. My name is still associated with it, and I’ve personally advocated the film. That’s more than I had to do with my contract. They’re getting their money’s worth whether or not Nezumi is involved.”

            “Shion, you don’t have to get upset with me.”

            “I’m not upset with you!” Shion snapped, scrubbing hard at the tile.

            He could hear Safu’s sigh. “Has it occurred to you that you’re too good of a person? You’re defending Nezumi even though he broke your heart.”

            Shion dropped the brush from the tile. Stared at the space he’d cleaned. “Whether or not it’s with me, I want him to be happy. He deserves that.”

            He heard Safu’s laughter, soft and gentle. “That’s what I mean, Shion. You’re too good. People don’t want the people they loved and lost to be happy. And even if they do, that sort of sentiment tends to take a while to set in after the break-up. You’re allowed a brief stretch of bitterness.”

            Shion didn’t feel bitter. He felt sad, but not as much anymore. Mostly, he just missed Nezumi, but there was nothing he could do about that.

            “He never promised me anything,” Shion reminded Safu – reminded himself. “I think he gave me all that he could, and I can’t ask him for more than that. I hope these aren’t just rumors, and that he does quit the film.”

            “If he quits, you’ll have coached him for no reason.”

            Shion looked around the shower for a place he hadn’t cleaned. “That’s not true. I’d have coached him so that we could meet. So that we could know each other. He taught me about beauty, and love, and anger, and sadness, the way I’d have never had the chance to feel any of it before. I’ll always be thankful that.”

            Safu was quiet. Shion stepped out of the tub, set down his scrubbing brush, took the shower nozzle from its perch and directed it at the tile walls before he turned on the spray.

            “Shion. I don’t know if I said this to you before, but I am sorry he left. I’m really sorry,” Safu said quietly, and Shion lifted the nozzle, got the tallest tiles, the crease where the two walls met.

            “Me too,” Shion agreed, his voice hardly a whisper as he washed away the suds, watching every last one of them disappear down the drain.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and yes, Shion's free skate routine is to the song "The Rules for Lovers" by Richard Walters, which I first discovered from that amazing yoi amv! ya'll should check it out :D


	9. Chapter 9

On the day before Shion’s birthday, Nezumi signed a contract releasing him from the major motion feature film, _Hearts of Ice._ He did not owe the production company any money as compensation and was not liable to be sued, largely thanks to Kiyoko, who argued that the money spent hiring Shion to garner publicity had not been wasted – Shion had indeed accumulated a vast amount of publicity and press for the film, largely anticipated in not only the figure skating community, but the LGBT community and supporters throughout the country.

            Nezumi had not shot enough scenes for them to be included in the film, but he signed over the few videos that Shion had taken of Nezumi during his own lessons. They’d been meant as tools for Nezumi to look back on and see where his forms and positions needed improvement, but the director said they might be useful in the film as flashbacks to the lead’s past.

            Auditions were being held for Nezumi’s replacement. While there were not many actors who looked like Nezumi, a few had similar features that with hair-dye and colored contacts could be cast and still allow Nezumi’s actual footage from his lessons to be used.

            “Why do they even want that footage?” Nezumi asked, while Kiyoko pointed to places on different documents for him to sign and date.

            “Because you’re a beautiful skater. It’s good footage. Any actor they get isn’t going to skate like that. Using those recordings as flashbacks in the film is a genius move.”

            “Was it your idea?” Nezumi asked dryly, signing the bottom of another page, letting Kiyoko flip it over and point to another blank line.

            “Of course it was. They ate it up, loved the idea. Helps publicity too – this is actual footage from your lessons under the world’s greatest figure skater. Shion’s voice might even be in some of the clips, the director will be ecstatic. Figure skating fans will go nuts to hear Shion tell you your camel pose is sexy. The videos might be more valuable than you are, kid, and that’s why you’re not being sued. You should be on your hands and knees thanking me for saving your ass.”

            “It’s called a camel position spin,” Nezumi said.

            “That’s what I said. Initial this one, and last signature here – Good, done. Happy now?”

            Nezumi peered up at his agent. They were in his apartment, Nezumi sitting at his kitchen counter with Kiyoko hovering energetically over him. “What happens to you?”

            “I get paid a mighty sum for my hard work dealing with your difficult ass.”

            “So you should be thanking me,” Nezumi proposed, and Kiyoko smiled, picked up the documents and tapped them lightly on Nezumi’s counter to straighten them into a neat pile.

            “That sense of humor of yours never does get old,” she said cheerfully, opening her briefcase that sat on the stool beside Nezumi.

            “Have you got a new client?”

            “No, but you shouldn’t worry about me. The drama with you is quite famous in the film agency world. I’m a celebrity of my own now.”

            Nezumi pushed his bangs from his forehead. “Actors quit all the time, I’m hardly the only one.”

            “Actors quit with grace, unlike you. You skipped rehearsals and line readings, made no attempt to understand the plight of your director and cast mates, and I turned your selfish quitting into a glorious win for the film. That’s big news, not that you would know a thing about it.”

            “Yeah, yeah,” Nezumi said, standing up and stretching his arms over his head, then dropping them and extending a hand to his ex-agent. “Guess this is our tearful goodbye?”

            Kiyoko smiled and took Nezumi’s hand. “I don’t think I’ll miss you.”

            “Shouldn’t you lie and pretend to like me now that we’re parting ways?” Nezumi asked dryly, shaking the woman’s hand. Her grip was firm, tighter than his.

            “To you? I didn’t peg you as someone to want fake flattery. Will you be going back to the New National Theatre?”

            Nezumi shrugged, slipping his hand into his pocket when Kiyoko released it. “I’m too late for the current production, and _The Nutcracker_ is already in rehearsal stage, but I’m heading there this afternoon to see if they’ve got room for an understudy. They’ve got auditions for _Don Quixote_ in a few weeks.”

            “So everything will go back to normal for you.”

            “Looks like it.”

            “Doesn’t that seem like a step back?” Kiyoko asked.

            Nezumi offered her a wry smile. “Are you done commenting on my life choices? I thought by signing those things I didn’t have to put up with you anymore.”

            Kiyoko waved her hand dismissively, picked up her briefcase, and turned from Nezumi, walking to his front door. “All right, I can take a hint. Maybe I’ll go to one of your shows.”

            “Maybe I’ll sign your playbook backstage if you ask nicely enough,” Nezumi said, while Kiyoko opened the door.

            She laughed, waved her briefcase. “I’ve got enough of your autographs. Goodbye, Nezumi. Good luck with your life.”

            She was gone before Nezumi could tell her he’d never believed in luck a day of his life.

*

For Shion’s birthday, he was sent a total of fourteen succulents.       

            He, his mother, and Safu opened the packages in Karan’s bakery, which had been closed early for the afternoon. A half-eaten cake still sat on the counter beside the register.

            “This one’s so cute,” Safu gushed, holding up a green plant whose leaves were thick with pink tips.

            “You can have it,” Shion offered, and Safu quickly placed it on the table beside her plate of crumbs.

            “I told you I don’t want your plants, Shion. I’ve watered enough of them in my lifetime.” 

            “There’s more this year than usual, isn’t there?” Karan asked, holding a plant with a tiny rainbow flag sticking out of the soil beside the long spiky leaves.

            Safu plucked out the flag and examined it. “Who knew you’d be a gay icon,” she commented, while Shion blushed.

            “I’m not,” he replied, stealing the flag from her and hiding it under one of the packages that another succulent had been shipped in.

            “Sure you are. They talk about you at the clinic all the time,” Safu said, a smile tugging at her lips that Shion worked hard to ignore, painfully aware of his mother sitting beside him.

            He pushed back his chair, stood up, grabbing the plates off the table as an excuse to escape and hide his embarrassment. He didn’t even know why he was embarrassed. He was twenty-six today – shouldn’t he have outgrown embarrassment by now?

            “I’ll just wash these up. Should I put on more tea?”

            “I can get it, hon,” Karan said, looking up at him, but Shion squeezed her shoulder.

            “I got it,” he said, and walked away before she could object, listening to Safu discuss where they could give away the new succulents as he headed back to the kitchen.

            In the kitchen, Shion washed the dishes slowly, reveling in the feeling of the warm water over his hands. He dried the dishes, put on the kettle, and stood looking down at it, not thinking too much about what he was doing when he pulled his phone out from his pocket and typed out a quick text.

            _Guess how many succulents I got for my birthday._

            He reread the text, hovered his finger over the arrow to backspace it all, then sent it instead.

            A flash of heat fell through him in a wash, and Shion quickly pocketed his phone, not wanting to stare at the screen as he waited for a reply. He wished the water was already boiled so he could return to his mother and Safu, let them distract him from the regret that hit him all at once, strong and unsteadying.

*

_Guess how many succulents I got for my birthday._

            Nezumi drummed his fingers on the counter beside the stovetop, waiting for the water in his kettle to boil. The shock of the text was wearing off, and he found himself trying to guess.

            Five, he thought. Ten was far too many. Seven at most.

            He glanced away from the text to his own cactus, sitting on the windowsill in his living room. He had spent the entirety of his train ride back to Tokyo on that last day in June setting alarms every ten days to remind him to water this plant. He’d gotten up to seven months in the future by the time the train pulled into Tokyo’s station. In seven months, he assumed, it would probably be instinct to water the thing. He didn’t really know how long they lived, but when he thought about it, he figured it could be forever. Plants didn’t really die of old age, at least, not that Nezumi knew of.

            It was later, while Nezumi sat on his couch reading the script for _The Nutcracker_ that he’d gotten from the show’s producer at The New National Theatre – he’d been hired the day before as an understudy after his impromptu audition, much in part because he’d done several productions under the same producer previously – that his phone screen lit up again.

            He glanced at the notification. Another text from Shion.

            Nezumi sat up. Tucked his thumb inside his script and picked up his phone with his other hand, sliding his fingertip over Shion’s name on the screen.

            If Nezumi left it unopened, it could say anything.

            Maybe it was the answer to Shion’s challenge – _Guess how many succulents I got for my birthday._ The text had been sent over four hours previously. It was past midnight now. Maybe Shion didn’t want to wait for Nezumi to guess. He just wanted to tell him.

            It could have been something else entirely. Nezumi imagined Shion was in bed, but it was his birthday, after all. He might have been out. Getting drinks with Safu.

            That wouldn’t be right. He was in-season, it was unlikely he’d be getting drunk. Still, his next competition wasn’t for another month and a half. He could sacrifice a night.

            It could be a drunk text, then. Some senseless rambling. Might not even have been meant for Nezumi at all – Shion certainly hadn’t contacted him since Nezumi left at the end of June, over two months before. Why now? Very likely he was drunk.

            But maybe it was meant for him. People did things they regretted when they were drunk. Shion would wake the next morning, hungover, maybe on Safu’s couch. He would look at his phone and remember he’d texted Nezumi something nonsensical, or worse, something sane. Something that couldn’t be passed off as nonsense, something Nezumi would read and know it was true because he felt it too, he had those words too, he just knew better than to get drunk and text them.

            Shion might not have been drunk. Might have texted Nezumi sober, but it was middle-of-the-night sober, which was a different kind of sober. Not really sober at all.

            Nezumi set his script down beside his leg. Turned his phone over in his hands. Considered what the text might say, what it probably didn’t say, what he’d hate if it said and what he wanted it to say.

            He didn’t know what he wanted it to say. The number of succulents, he thought. That would be the best scenario. The safest information, the easiest truth he could take – how many plants Shion had now.

            Nezumi put his phone down without opening the text. He picked up his script again, read half a page before he was just looking at the words, not understanding any of it. He kept at it, pretending to read until a little after two in the morning, and then he took his phone and went to his bed, plugging it into his charger. He brushed his teeth, peed, returned to bed, laid down, closed his eyes, and turned over twice before flipping over, grabbing his phone, and opening the text.

            _Sorry. I know I shouldn’t have texted you. Hope you’re doing all right._

            Nezumi rolled over onto his back. Held the phone still, and with his other hand he covered his eyes. He wished he hadn’t opened the text and that in his head, he could have imagined that Shion had said anything to him, anything Nezumi might have wanted.

*

Shion had gotten to the point where he could land his quad axel about fifty percent of the time within his free skate as the final jump.

            He was always left completely out of breath afterward, but it was progress. He increased his work-out regime, hitting the local gym so often he was offered his own pass to use it even after it closed. Shion knew his town supported his figure skating. He was honored to receive the support that they gave him.

            By October nineteenth, Shion was on a plane to Moscow with Karan. Safu, who usually came with Shion to his competitions, couldn’t get off work. Shion would be skating his short program in the Rostelecom Cup in two days and his free skate the day after that. He slept for the entire plane ride.

            After every competitor at the event had skated their short program, Shion’s scores put him in first. He sat with his mother at the hotel breakfast bar on the morning he was to do his free skate, poking at his blueberry pancake and not thinking of anything until his mother spoke to him.

            “Shion.”

            Shion glanced up at her.

            “Are you going to do the quad axel this afternoon?” she asked.

            Shion stared back at his pancake. He’d eaten only half of one. He wasn’t nervous so much as tired. He hadn’t slept much the night before, but then, he hadn’t been sleeping much for months.

            “I don’t know,” he answered truthfully.

            “I don’t want you to.”

            “I know.”

            “Shion.”

            Shion looked up again. His mother’s eyebrows were creased in concern.

            “Maybe you should take a nap before the competition,” she offered, and Shion chose not to argue.

            He’d been planning to practice his quad axel at the rink until his free skate, but maybe it’d be better not to tax his body before his program. He stood up, left the table, and returned to his hotel room, where he laid on his bed and stared up at the off-white ceiling.       

            After a minute or so, he closed his eyes and let himself daydream about Nezumi, the way he sometimes allowed himself – not often, but occasionally. He pretended in his head that they were at the rink, and he was showing Nezumi a scratch spin, the first spin Shion had taught him.

            _The tighter you keep your arms to your body, the more speed you’ll give yourself._

            When Nezumi spun, his bangs, free from their clips, had covered his eyes. Shion had watched him, a blur of pale skin in sweats. Nezumi fell out of it after several seconds of rotations, laughing on the ice, and Shion had stared at him, unsure why Nezumi was laughing but not minding one bit, not telling him to get up and try it again, not wanting him to ever get up at all.

            Shion still didn’t know why Nezumi had laughed when he’d fallen. He’d never asked, and in his daydream, he didn’t ask either.

            He just listened to Nezumi laugh, a mess of long limbs on the ice, of scattered bangs and the rest of his hair half out of his messy bun.

            Sometimes, Shion hated that he had so many memories of Nezumi. It would take him so much longer to get tired of them, of running them through his head, of reliving them. It would take him too long to get over his man, and Shion hated that but loved it too, was so grateful for it too.

            When his alarm went off, his cue to get dressed and head to the competition rink, Shion felt as though no time had passed at all. In his head, Nezumi had only just fallen out of his scratch spin and was still laughing, and Shion still felt amazed at the sound.

*

Nezumi had rehearsal during the free skate portion of the Rostelecom Cup. The competition in Moscow was in the afternoon, but in Tokyo it was still morning, and Nezumi had only been at rehearsal for an hour.

            They’d only just begun rehearsals for _Don Quixote_ a few days before after a week of auditions. Nezumi had been cast as the title character himself. The alarm he’d previously set on his phone went off mid-pirouette.

            “Whose phone was that?” the producer demanded, while Nezumi stopped his spin and glanced at his wrist before remembering he didn’t wear a watch and never had.

            “Sorry, mine,” he said, jumping off the stage and grabbing his phone from the pocket of his jacket, slung over an audience chair.

            “Nezumi, I know I don’t have to remind you of our phone policy.”

            “It’s the Moscow skating thing, isn’t it?”

            Nezumi glanced up at his cast member. Akihiko, a guy Nezumi had been in several productions with.

            “What skating thing?” the producer asked.

            “Shion’s in it. The world’s greatest figure skater, you know, from here. Japan. He just taught Nezumi to figure skate for that film. You’ve never heard of Shion? He’s like, the country’s pride and joy,” Akihiko continued.

            Nezumi silenced his phone.

            “Oh, yeah, white hair. You kissed that guy,” the producer said, looking at Nezumi in a sharp way Nezumi didn’t care to read.

            “We can pick up at the top of the act,” Nezumi said, pulling himself back onto the stage.

            “What, he’s got a skating thing right now?”

            “In Moscow,” Akihiko confirmed.

            “It doesn’t matter,” Nezumi said.

            “You follow this stuff?” the producer asked Akihiko, who shrugged.

            “Sure, my wife’s in love with the guy. Shion. She’s all excited that he might do some impossible quad something.”

            “Axel,” Nezumi said quietly, unintentionally.

            “That’s it. Quad axel. That’s the one.”

            “We can take a break,” another dancer in the cast said, while Nezumi strung his fingers through his bangs. “They only skate for like, five minutes, right? Isn’t that your boyfriend?”

            “He’s not,” Nezumi said, looking away from the other dancers and his producer. His hand was still in his hair, and he tightened his fingers.

            “Let’s take five,” the producer said, while Nezumi exhaled through his teeth.

            “I don’t need to – ”

            “Take five, I don’t need everyone distracted during rehearsal. Go on, get off my stage.”

            The rest of the dancers left the stage, so Nezumi had no choice but to follow. He grabbed his phone from his jacket and made to leave the auditorium, but his cast mates were surrounding him.

            “Well? You gotta get to the live feed, right?” Akihiko asked.

            “Are you serious?” Nezumi demanded.

            Akihiko smiled. “Come on, let us watch too. We all like the guy, he’s a good skater.”  
            Nezumi shook his head, but Shion would be on soon, and arguing would just take up time. He had the website bookmarked, went straight to the live feed and caught the announcer’s last commentary on the previous skater before Shion was skating onto the rink.

            Nezumi was acutely aware of the rest of his cast mates huddled around his back, and then Akihiko was grabbing his phone from his hand, holding it out further.

            “So everyone can see,” he said, and Nezumi couldn’t glare at Akihiko because Shion’s music had started, and Shion was starting his routine, and Nezumi couldn’t look away from him.

            _Shion’s short program has him in first amongst the other skaters at the Rostelecom Cup, but the Grand Prix is just getting underway. He’ll have to retain the same excellent performance throughout his free skate, and then he’ll be moving on to Skate America in November where we’ll get to see him impress us again in New York. Moscow seems to have its own set of fans just for Shion – his popularity hardly seems any less here than it was in Manila during the Asian Open just a few months ago. And there’s his second quad of the program, the quad Salchow, gorgeously done, no surprise there, moving into a perfect crossfoot spin._

            “This guy taught you to do stuff like that?” the producer asked Nezumi from somewhere to Nezumi’s left, but Nezumi paid him no attention.

            Shion continued to skate gracefully, but Nezumi thought his breathing looked more labored than usual, and it was only the start of the second half of his program. He landed another quad, then a back-to-back jump, and Nezumi found himself wishing Shion would stop jumping altogether.

            He had too many jumps in his program. He didn’t need them. He could just skate over the ice, no spins or jumps at all, and he’d get the gold. He didn’t need to do anything, and he’d be the most incredible skater to watch.

            There was a double Lutz, and then a step sequence, and then Shion was slowing, skating in a long curve around the edge of the rink, and the last quad was next but Nezumi hoped he wouldn’t do it.

            A triple instead, like at the Asian Open. Even a double. Just a spin to end the program.

            _Here comes his last jump. We saw a breathtaking triple Lutz at the end of his Asian Open performance, but we’re all still hoping for that quad axel. There he goes, a forward lift into an axel, and that’s – four rotations! Was that four rotations? I swear, that looked like four rotations to me! The crowd seems to think so too, they’re screaming so loud, and Shion landed it perfectly, is coming to the end now – A quad axel? Did we just witness the very first quad axel of figure skating competition history? But hold on, Shion doesn’t look so – Oh my goodness._

            When Shion fell to the ice, Nezumi shouted his name. He reached out, grabbed his phone. Held it closer to his face, stared at Shion’s limp body on the ice and waited for the man to get up, couldn’t hear a thing but his pulse, watched the video pan closer to Shion’s body, and then there were medical personnel skating into the camera’s view, bending over Shion, blocking the camera’s view of him.

            “Guys, shut up, we need to hear what they’re saying!” Akihiko snapped, and Nezumi realized everyone around him was talking, but then they weren’t, and Nezumi could finally make out what the announcer was saying.

            – _just crumbled right in front of our eyes, still no update from the medics, but he doesn’t seem to be stirring, though of course it’s hard to see. There’s his coach and mother Karan skating onto the ice now, the medics are paying her no mind. A stretcher being brought in – Oh dear, this is not looking good, they’re skating off the ice with him – Folks, I wish I had more information to offer, but for now we’re going to ask you to standby and switch over to –_

            “Nezumi.”

            Nezumi wanted to throw his phone when the feed switched to a set of commentators outside the rink. “Fuck, fuck.”

            “Nezumi.”

            “Don’t fucking touch me,” Nezumi snapped, ripping his arm away from the cast mate whose hand was on his shoulder.

            “You can leave,” the producer said, and Nezumi stared at him, tried to focus.

            “Hey, come on now,” Akihiko started, but the producer cut him off.

            “Go on, do what you have to do. We’ll resume rehearsal tomorrow. If you can’t make it, you call and let us know, and that’ll be fine.”

            Nezumi continued to stare. He was aware he was breathing hard. He didn’t know what he had to do. He didn’t know what he was supposed to do. He looked back at his phone and couldn’t see anything. His hand was in his hair and he was aware that he was cursing, made himself stop.

            He shook his head. “I’m not – I’m not even – I don’t – ”

            Nezumi’s producer’s hand was on Nezumi’s arm, and Nezumi couldn’t jerk away. “I don’t care if the guy’s not your boyfriend, I don’t care if he is. I’ve known you a long time, Nezumi, and I’ve never seen you so scared shitless. So you go do what you have to do, and you’ll have your place here whenever you get back. You’ve done good for this theater, and for me, personally, in all the productions we’ve done together. I’m thanking you now by telling you to get out of here. Understand?”

            The producer let go of Nezumi’s arm to push him gently, and Nezumi stepped back, then kept stepping back, then was leaving the theater, feeling numb, unsure what to do when he was outside the building, but there was Akihiko beside him, and Nezumi didn’t realized he’d been following him.

            Akihiko was on the phone, and Nezumi stared at him, unable to make out what his cast mate was saying.

            He gave up. Looked back down at his phone. Watched the commentator’s lips move. Waited for the cameras to return to Shion.

            He was still waiting when a car pulled up, and then Akihiko was pushing him gently. “It’s taking you to the airport, I’ve got one of my buddies heading to your place to grab your passport, he’ll meet you there,” Akihiko said, and Nezumi had no idea what he was talking about, didn’t think, couldn’t think, got in the car and Akihiko closed the door on him and the driver of the car pulled away from the theater.

            Nezumi closed his eyes. He felt nauseous, and the darkness didn’t help, but he was certain to open his eyes wouldn’t help either.

            Nothing would help, and Nezumi knew that more than anything.

*

When Shion opened his eyes, Nezumi was staring intently at him, so Shion figured he was dreaming.

            An odd dream, because he realized quickly that he was in a hospital room.

            “You’re up,” Nezumi said, which was wrong.

            “I’m dreaming,” Shion corrected, and Nezumi squinted at him.

            “Does your head hurt?”

            “I don’t think people can feel pain in dreams. Although there is research disputing that idea, I’ve read about it,” Shion said.

            Nezumi continued to stare.

            “It’s nice to see you,” Shion offered. “Even if I’ll wake up. I don’t usually dream about you, which is strange, seeing as you take up so much of my conscious thoughts. I daydream about you, though.”

            “I think you hit your head,” Nezumi finally said, speaking slowly.

            He was holding Shion’s hand, Shion realized. He looked down at it. There was an IV protruding from the back of it. Nezumi’s fingers were long and loosely curled around his own.

            “It doesn’t hurt,” Shion said gently, because Nezumi seemed concerned for him, and Shion didn’t want him to worry.

            Nezumi’s hand that wasn’t holding Shion’s reached up, touched Shion’s face only briefly before sliding around to the back of Shion’s head. Shion leant into the touch, felt Nezumi’s long fingers drifting through his hair, probing softly as if searching.

            “What are you doing?” Shion whispered. Nezumi’s touch felt incredibly real, the way it did when he was awake.

            It was occurring to Shion that he was awake after all, but he couldn’t piece together how this could be possible. He was meant to be at the Rostelecom Cup. Nezumi was meant to be gone from his life – or at the very least, in Japan.

            “You don’t feel any pain?” Nezumi asked, not answering Shion’s question, but Shion had already forgotten he’d asked one.

            “Where are we?” he asked, and Nezumi dropped his hand.

            “The hospital,” Nezumi said carefully, and Shion thought the word sounded clumsy on Nezumi’s lips, as if he wasn’t sure how to speak it.

            Shion tried to look more closely at the man. Noted that his eyes were a little wider than usual. His skin paler. He looked, to Shion, a little scared, and Shion’s heart beat faster.

            He wondered if he were not in a dream at all, but a nightmare. He had a strong suspicion that Nezumi’s nightmares often took place in hospitals.

            “Are we awake?” Shion asked, and he watched Nezumi breathe through his open lips, a quick breath, audible.

            “Yeah,” he finally said, his voice a little shaky.

            “Nezumi.”

            “Yeah.”

            “Are you okay?”

            “Yeah.” Nezumi’s hand was in his dark hair, pushing his bangs back.

            Shion decided he was awake. They were both awake. Nezumi was scared of hospitals, or maybe scared for Shion, who was in the hospital, or maybe it was both.

            He tried to work out how he could be awake. The last thing he remembered was the Rostelecom Cup. His free skate. Exhaustion. Gasping through his skate. Not thinking he’d make it to the end, just wanting it to end, his body searing for it to end. He’d landed his quad axel, he’d finished his free skate, he’d stood still to face the crowd and smile and bow, and then everything was black.

            He’d fainted, he supposed. This made sense. The only other option was that he’d been attacked, shot maybe, but that was such a bizarre option that Shion eliminated it.

            There was still Nezumi’s presence to figure out.

            “Are we in Moscow?” Shion asked. He spoke gently. He wanted to distract Nezumi from whatever Nezumi was scared of.

            Nezumi nodded. His fingers moved over Shion’s hand, and Shion looked down at it, watched Nezumi’s thumb rub over the back of his hand, then lift up, touch the tape that held down the IV.

            Shion followed the line of his IV. It was connected to a bag on an IV stand filled with clear liquid. Shion pointed at it with his IV-free hand.

            “Do you know what’s in there?” he asked. He liked asking Nezumi questions. He loved talking to this man. If he kept asking, then Nezumi would have to answer, and he could never leave.

            Nezumi didn’t even look at the bag. His eyes were drifting over Shion’s body and face and never left him. “No,” Nezumi said, while he seemed to be looking at Shion’s neck, then his hair, then his lips. “They told me. I couldn’t understand them.”

            “Were they speaking Russian?” Shion asked, tilting his head.

            “No. They spoke English and your mother translated for me,” Nezumi said.

            Shion looked around the room for his mother, but it was a small room, easy to see that he and Nezumi were alone.

            “Why couldn’t you understand my mom?”

            Nezumi just shook his head. Exhaled hard. “It sounded like she was talking from a long way away,” he finally managed, his voice a little shaky, and Shion sat up, was glad to find that it was painless to do so, easy to do so.

            He reached out, thinking to touch Nezumi’s face, but then he settled on Nezumi’s wrist instead, wrapped his fingers loosely around the pale skin there. He could see Nezumi’s veins beneath his skin, rivers of light green, a map he’d traced before to see where it might lead him.

            “I’m okay,” Shion insisted, even though he didn’t know why he was at the hospital in the first place. He didn’t need to know. He felt okay. Even if he wasn’t okay, he wanted Nezumi to believe he was. He wanted Nezumi to feel better. “Everything is going to be okay.”

            Nezumi didn’t say anything. His eyes were flickering between Shion’s now, fast and wide.

            “Tell me what you’re thinking,” Shion pressed. He didn’t understand how Nezumi was in Moscow. A plane, he rationalized. That was the way to get to Moscow from Tokyo. Nezumi must have gotten on a plane. Found the hospital where Shion was. Probably used the stairs to get to whatever floor Shion was, Shion knew he preferred stairs to elevators, preferred moving to standing still.

            There was still the matter of how Nezumi knew Shion was in the hospital. He must have been watching the Rostelecom Cup. He must have seen Shion black out.

            Shion felt better having pieced it together. He did not have to be dreaming. This could be real. There was a way it could all be real, and Nezumi could be sitting beside him, holding his hand with incredibly loose fingers.

            “I don’t like hospitals,” Nezumi whispered, only once Shion forgot he’d even asked Nezumi a question.

            “Why did you come?” Shion asked, even though he didn’t want to ask it.

            He wanted it to be obvious. He wanted it to be expected, that Nezumi would come, but it wasn’t, it didn’t make sense even though Shion wanted it to.

            It had been nearly four months since Shion had seen Nezumi. He couldn’t pretend it was normal to see this man no matter how much he wished it was.

            “I didn’t want you to wake up alone,” Nezumi said.

            Shion didn’t remind Nezumi that he had his mother, that there were other figure skaters at the competition Shion knew and liked who would have accompanied him to the hospital if his mother couldn’t, that Safu might even have flown from Tokyo as well if no one else could be beside him.

            Shion did not remind Nezumi that he had so many people who could have been by his side because Shion felt selfish having so many people, and besides, he didn’t want any of them.

            He wanted Nezumi.

            “I haven’t stopped missing you yet,” Shion admitted, because Nezumi had admitted that he didn’t like hospitals, and even though Shion had already guessed that, he felt it was only fair that he admitted a secret of his own.

            He thought Nezumi probably already knew his secret too, anyway.

            Nezumi didn’t say anything, but his loose fingers tightened just a little around Shion’s hand.

            Shion felt, from where they fell against his palm and the back of his hand, that Nezumi’s fingers were shaking just the smallest bit.

*


	10. Chapter 10

Shion had passed out from overexertion, fatigue, and dehydration. His IV was simply to restore depleted fluids, but his condition was not serious, and he would be discharged by the end of the day.

            Nezumi learned all of this from Shion’s mother, who translated the nurse’s English when the nurse came in to tell Shion what had happened.

            Shion knew some English, and translation probably was not needed, but Nezumi was glad for it. It felt a little easier to hear now, to listen, to pay attention to Karan when she said to Shion, _You’re going to be absolutely fine._

            Even though the words were directed at Shion, she had looked at Nezumi while she said them. To hear the words came as more of a relief than Nezumi could have imagined.

            Nezumi had left the hospital room on Shion’s instruction to sneak him a soda from a vending machine and was returning with a can of soda in hand when he heard his name being called.

            He was a few steps from Shion’s door and turned to find Safu walking towards him with a purple duffel bag, the strap of which kept slipping off her shoulder before she’d hike it up again. He stopped, waited for her.

            “You’re here,” she said, which wasn’t a question nor something Nezumi knew how to reply to, so he chose to ignore it.

            “Safu.”

            “Have you seen him?”

            Nezumi nodded. “He’ll be fine,” he said, echoing Karan’s words.

            Safu glanced at Shion’s door, then turned back to squint at Nezumi. “Did he call you to come here?”

            “No.” The can of soda was cold, and Nezumi slipped it from one hand to the other.

            “Did Karan call you?”

            “Why would Karan call me?”

            “I don’t know, I’m just trying to figure out why you’re here,” Safu said. “Either someone called you and specifically requested you, or you came on your own.”

            “Guess it has to be the latter option,” Nezumi replied.

            “That option seems the least likely,” Safu said.

            Nezumi looked away from her. The floor was set up in a circle of rooms, the center full of nurse’s stations. He couldn’t remember if the hospital he’d been taken to as a child looked like this. He only remembered the room he was in and that it was empty when he’d woken.

            He heard Safu exhale hard and glanced at her.

            “Sorry,” she said, so Nezumi looked at her fully. “I’m stressed. And jet-lagged. And I hate flying, even though it’s irrational, as there’s far more car crashes than accidents in air travel. And I’m worried about him. It’s easy to take it out on you. You’re an easy villain.”

            “Am I?” Nezumi asked, blinking.

            Safu smiled a small smile. She looked worn. Tired. Nezumi peered again at her duffel bag, and Safu seemed to notice. “My overnight bag for the clinic. I wasn’t thinking when I saw Shion fall. Grabbed it and went straight to the airport, but turns out it’s just full of scrubs and underwear, so it’s not very useful.”

            “I wasn’t thinking either,” Nezumi offered, not knowing why he said it.

            Safu looked at him carefully, nodded. “You just came.”

            “Yeah.”

            “Do you know if he’s sleeping? Can I go see him?”

            “He’s not sleeping. I was going to bring him this, can you take it in for him?” Nezumi asked, holding out the can of soda, which Safu looked at but didn’t take.

            “Where are you going?” she asked, and Nezumi heard the accusation in her voice, the suspicion there.

            He gave a half smile. “That bench, probably,” he said, nodding at a bench against the wall beside them. “Give you two some time, that’s all.”

            “Oh,” Safu said, seeming to deflate, and she reached out and took the soda. “Thanks,” she added, hitching her duffel bag back up her shoulder and heading to the door.

            Nezumi sat on the bench. Watched Safu as she disappeared into Shion’s room and closed the door gently behind her.

            Nezumi leaned his head back against the wall behind the bench. He didn’t have a watch, and his phone was dead. He didn’t know what day it was with the time differences and the long flight and waiting for Shion to wake, but somehow time didn’t seem to exist in this hospital.

            Nezumi closed his eyes, but he didn’t sleep. He waited until he could return to Shion’s side.

*

Karan had ridden in the ambulance with Shion to the hospital, and both Nezumi and Safu had taken taxis from the airport, so nobody had a car.

            They pooled inside a taxi to the hotel where Karan and Shion were staying. Shion sat in the back between Nezumi and Safu and had no idea what Nezumi’s plans were.

            Shion assumed Nezumi would, like he, Safu, and his mother, return to Japan. He felt odd asking Nezumi, crammed in the back seat with him, and when he glanced at Nezumi, it was to see that the man was staring out the window. His profile gave no indication at all as to what he was thinking.

            It was just before noon. Shion had blacked out the night before and woken up that morning. His mother had informed him that he’d gotten first place in the Rostelecom Cup.

            The taxi dropped them off at the hotel where Shion and Karan had been staying, and they all headed up to the fourth floor. Shion had a connecting room with his mother, and once they got out of the elevator, Safu squeezed Shion’s arm.

            “I’ll help your mother pack, and we’ll meet you and Nezumi downstairs in a half hour. Sound good?” she asked, giving Shion a knowing look, and Shion smiled at her gratefully.

            “Yeah, that works,” he agreed, thankful for his friend for giving him time to speak with Nezumi alone.

            “I can book flights back to Tokyo for the four of us for this afternoon,” Karan said. “Does that work for you, Nezumi?”

            Nezumi blinked at her, seeming startled to be addressed. “You’re going to Tokyo?”

            “It’s the closest airport,” Shion said quietly. “We’ll take the train from there.”

            “Oh. Um, okay, if it’s not too much trouble. Just let me know how much the ticket is,” Nezumi said, rubbing the back of his neck and looking sheepish.

            “It’s no trouble at all,” Karan said, smiling at Nezumi, and then they were at their doors, and Shion slid his key into the slot while his mother slid hers.

            Shion walked into his room first, and Nezumi followed, drifting around aimlessly and ending at the window, where Shion watched him peek out the curtains.

            Shion knew his view was of the hotel pool. He watched Nezumi take his fingers from the curtain to allow it to cover the window again, slip his hands in his pockets, and turn to look back at Shion.

            “What happens now?” Shion asked, before Nezumi could, wanting to be the one to ask so he didn’t have to be the one to answer.

            Nezumi looked at him in that way he did, that full and focused way, eyes skating slowly over Shion’s features, warming him from the outside in. “We fly to Tokyo,” Nezumi said.

            “And after that?”

            “You take a train back home. And rest. The doctor said to rest.”

            “And that’s it?” Shion asked, wanting more, needing more.

             “That’s it,” Nezumi confirmed.

             “You flew out here, Nezumi. It’s a ten-hour flight to Moscow, and you just flew here to see me. That’s not it.”

            Nezumi made no visible reaction. “Okay, Shion,” he said. “What should happen next?”

            Shion took a breath. Let it out more quickly than he’d intended. Stepped closer to Nezumi, then again when Nezumi didn’t step back, then again until he had closed the distance between them.

            From outside his window, he could hear shouts from the pool, laughter that seemed too loud.

            “You came all the way here,” Shion said, knowing he’d said it before, but Nezumi didn’t seem to have acknowledged the fact, and it was important.

            Nezumi had come to be with Shion when he woke at the hospital all the way in Moscow. That had to mean something. That couldn’t mean nothing.

            Nezumi kept looking at Shion, and then abruptly he was not, was staring across the hotel room away from Shion. His hand lifted from one of his pockets, wove into his bangs, his fingers long and his hair dark.

            “Nezumi – ”

            “I wasn’t thinking, Shion. I wasn’t – I couldn’t think,” Nezumi said, his voice sudden and loud, then quickly breaking off. He shook his head, his hand still in his hair, and then he was looking back at Shion, his gaze harder than before, heavier and more solid. “I couldn’t think, and I came here, and I know what that looks like, do you think I don’t know? But it isn’t what it looks like.”

            “What is it then?” Shion demanded, his hands in fists just like that, and he tried to loosen them.

            “It’s nothing,” Nezumi said shortly.

            “People don’t fly for ten hours out of the blue for nothing.”

            “You collapsed on the ice! They weren’t saying anything, they just kept saying they didn’t have any update yet, to standby – ”

            “Then why didn’t you just standby?” Shion shouted, because Nezumi was shouting, so Shion wanted to as well. “Why did you go to the airport and book a flight and come to Moscow and find me and sit next to my hospital bed and hold my hand? Why did you do any of that? You should have just stood-by!”

            Nezumi dropped his hand from his hair and pressed his fingers hard to his temples. “You know what?” he said, dropping his hand from his face. “Next time you decide to overexert yourself and do more than you can manage and pass out on the ice, next time you’re so fucking stupid to work yourself till you black out, then I’ll fucking standby. Shit, Shion,” he snapped, turning away from Shion, walking away from him, stopping abruptly in front of the television, and his hand was back in his hair again.

            He stood with his back to Shion, and Shion watched his shoulder blades move as he breathed.

            “I didn’t ask you to come here,” Shion said, to Nezumi’s back. He’d lowered his voice. He remembered that Safu and his mother were in the adjoining room. There was a door that connected the rooms.

            “But you wanted me to,” Nezumi said, which had Shion’s hands back in the fists he’d only just managed to loosen them from.

            “So? What does that matter? I wasn’t going to ask you, I haven’t talked to you in four months, don’t even act like my feelings are a burden on you, you don’t have to deal with them at all,” Shion said hotly.

            Nezumi turned around, freeing his hand from his bangs in order to tuck his hair behind his ear. “You texted me two months ago,” he pointed out, and Shion was glad there was nothing near him to throw, or he definitely would have thrown it at the asshole in front of him.

            “Since when were you so petty? It was a mistake, I realized that the second after I texted you, and I apologized. I don’t know why I should be apologizing anyway, maybe I texted you, but you flew out here to see me, that’s a bit more of a grand gesture than sending a text about some plants. You’re the one sending mixed signals, you’re the one making this hard, it’s always been you.”

            Nezumi glared at Shion. There was a flinch of his skin by his jawline. “Fine. I’ll stop making it hard. We’ll fly back to Tokyo, and you’ll get on a train home, and that’s it. Next time you pass out on the ice, I’ll stay far away from you.”

            “So we just pretend that you didn’t fly all the way out here. That it meant nothing. That really, you don’t give a shit about me at all.”

            “Of course I do!” Nezumi said loudly, and Shion was so shocked that he forgot to be concerned about his mother and Safu in the adjoining room. “Is that what you want from me? To tell you that you weren’t the only one, that I felt everything you did? To tell you that I’ve missed you too, and it’s been hard for me too? Would that make any of this better?”

            Shion’s eyes burned. He tried to ignore this. “I don’t believe you. If you felt everything I did, you would have given us a real shot.”

            Nezumi made a sound in his throat like half a scoff, something disbelieving. He turned away from Shion, shook his head, pushed his bangs off his forehead. If he kept that up, he’d pull out all of his hair, and Shion had the irrational urge to go up to Nezumi, hold his hands down, force him to stop fidgeting with his bangs.

            His hair was down around his shoulders. Did not look entirely combed or silky as Shion was accustomed to. Shion imagined there would be knots in it that Nezumi would get frustrated dealing with later that night.

            “You’re so goddamn self-absorbed. Fuck, Shion,” Nezumi muttered.

            “What does that even mean?” Shion demanded.

            “It means you’re so in your own head you can’t see something unless it’s explicitly spelled out to you,” Nezumi snapped.

            “I don’t need anything explicitly spelled out to me. I don’t see the point in you telling me you missed me and that this was hard on you too if you just want us to return to Japan and never see each other like before. Missing me doesn’t really mean anything in that case, you do realize that, right? Or is it romantic to you? To make us miss each other?”

            Nezumi closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. Like he was fed up with Shion. Like he was the one who had the right to be fed up.

            Shion took the moment of having a break from Nezumi’s glare to catch his breath. He was starting to feel a little dizzy. He remembered that he was supposed to be resting.

            “Hey,” he said, and Nezumi didn’t open his eyes.

            “What?”

            “I’m going to sit down, but that’s not a sign of me giving up or ending this discussion. I’m just sitting because I think I need to sit.”

            Nezumi dropped his hand from his nose. Opened his eyes. Shion walked to the edge of his bed and sat on it because he had clothing strewn over the only chair.

            “How do you feel?”

            “I feel like I should be sitting,” Shion said.

            “Maybe you should lie down.”

            “I don’t need to lie down.”

            “I’m going to get you water.”

            “Do whatever you want,” Shion said, realizing how childish he sounded as he heard the words leave his lips.

            He watched Nezumi leave his view, disappearing into the kitchen area. There was the sound of the sink running, and then Nezumi was returning with a glass of water, sitting on the bed beside Shion, which surprised Shion.

            He stared at Nezumi, who watched him back, expressionless.

            “You should take the water,” Nezumi said, and Shion realized Nezumi was holding out the glass.

            He took it. “Thanks.”

            “You should drink it.”

            Shion stopped himself from rolling his eyes and took a sip.

            “I told you to eat something at the hospital,” Nezumi said.

            “I ate the Jell-O, and you really can’t be taking care of me and acting concerned, it sends mixed signals.”

            Nezumi sighed. “I’m not acting.”

            “Stop being concerned.”

            Nezumi looked away from Shion, stared at the curtained window that looked out on the pool. “I can’t just stop, Shion. I was sure I would have by now, a long time ago, but I haven’t.”

            Shion examined his profile. “Maybe that means something.”

            “It doesn’t mean anything.”

            “It means it’s worth it to be in each other’s lives.”

            Nezumi leaned back, his palms resting on the mattress behind him. He tilted his head sideways, looked at Shion out the corners of his eyes. “I couldn’t even think when I thought something had happened to you. I felt – I was terrified, and you’d just passed out, but I couldn’t even think straight enough to figure it out. There was no reason to be so scared. I should have known that you were just pushing yourself harder than you could take, that you were just tired, that was it. But I thought you’d died. That’s what I thought, Shion. I thought you were dead on the ice, and there was no reason at all for me to think that, but I did anyway.”

            “Nothing is going to happen to me,” Shion managed, after he caught his breath.

            “I can’t do this with you. You don’t understand, you’ve never had to understand, and I’m grateful for that, I don’t want you to understand. But I can’t get close to you without being scared out of my mind something will happen. If I have some relationship with you, I’ll never – ” Nezumi exhaled hard, closed his eyes. He took a moment to open them again. “ – I’ll never be able to think straight.”

            “But you understand your fears are irrational,” Shion said gently, leaning closer to Nezumi only by an inch. “You know they’re rooted in your past, and they really have no other basis, and that the past doesn’t repeat itself, and realistically there’s no greater chance of anything happening to me than anything happening to anyone. You know all of that.”

            “I don’t know that.”

            Shion tried not to get frustrated. “Nezumi. You can’t think there’s somehow a greater chance that if you’re with me, something will happen to me. I thought you didn’t believe in things like luck and chance.”

            “I don’t believe in luck and chance. People die randomly all the time.”

            “But I’m not going to!” Shion insisted.

            “Probably not,” Nezumi agreed easily. “But I’d rather not live in fear that you will. I couldn’t think, Shion, I don’t think you understand. I couldn’t think at all, I couldn’t breathe. I can’t do that for the rest of my life.”

            Shion leaned closer another inch. “Then don’t live in fear.”

            “That’s the problem. You think that’s simple. Have you ever lost anything in your life? Have you ever sacrificed anything? Do you even know anything about fear? Have you ever felt it?”

            Shion looked at Nezumi and couldn’t answer him. The only thing he’d lost was this man sitting beside him right now, the only thing he’d had to fear was that Nezumi would leave him again.

            “You can’t be scared your entire life, Nezumi,” Shion finally said, quietly, and Nezumi stood up.

            “I don’t intend to be,” he replied, walking over to the chair with Shion’s strewn clothes, picking them up and folding them slowly. “We should pack your stuff, we have to meet them in ten minutes.”

            Shion didn’t want to pack his stuff. He didn’t want to fly back to Tokyo, he didn’t want to leave the city on a train with his mother and Safu. His panic was thick in the base of his throat, and he tried to swallow it down.

            He stood up. Walked closer to Nezumi, reached out, caught Nezumi’s wrist when Nezumi made to reach for one of Shion’s sweaters.

            “Nezumi.”

            “Hm?” Nezumi did not pull his wrist free.

            “Don’t be sarcastic. Just answer me,” Shion warned, and Nezumi straightened up, looked at Shion fully, still left his wrist in Shion’s grip.

            “Okay.”

            “Do you love me?”

            Nezumi did not take a second. He nodded and spoke – “Of course.”

            “But that’s not enough.”

            Nezumi slid his wrist free. He reached his hand up, touched Shion’s scar with just his thumb. “It’s too much. That’s the problem.” Nezumi’s smile was small and barely there.

            Shion leaned forward and kissed it without thinking about what he was doing, and Nezumi kissed him back, his hand sliding from Shion’s cheek back around his head, weaving into Shion’s hair, his fingers warm and loose.

            Nezumi leaned away first, but took his time to do so, kissed Shion until everything inside of Shion was melted and he was certain there must be smoke coming out from his lips. Maybe that was why Nezumi moved away, so that he wouldn’t inhale the smoke that had been Shion’s organs, so that he wouldn’t suffocate on the smoke that had been Shion’s pulse.

            Nezumi didn’t move too far from him, and Shion was glad for this because when he spoke, it was too quietly, and he needed Nezumi to be close enough to hear him.

            “Tell me what to do to make you stay,” Shion whispered. He worried it was just smoke coming out from his lips.

            Nezumi looked at him, and Shion didn’t think he was going to answer, but then he did. “Make me like you less, and I’ll stay as long as you want.”

            Shion tried not to gasp from the squeeze of his chest. “I don’t know how to do that,” he breathed.

            “Then I don’t know how to stay,” Nezumi said quietly, but Shion couldn’t be sure that was what he’d said, because then Nezumi’s lips were back on Shion’s, and Shion was the one to kiss back this time, open lips and skin too hot.

            Again, it was Nezumi who pulled away, this time stepping back, his hands slipping out from Shion’s hair and the back of Shion’s shirt where it must have risen at some point, Shion couldn’t remember when.

            “We have to pack,” Nezumi said, still stepping away from Shion.

            Shion watched him place the folded clothes from the chair into Shion’s suitcase, then wander around the room, looking for more to pack.

            “What happens in a year?” Shion asked, still not having moved from the spot where Nezumi had kissed him.

            “What?” Nezumi was lifting the sheets of the bed, looking under them.

            “Will you still not let us be together in a year?” Shion asked, and Nezumi glanced at him quickly before moving to the kitchen area again, out of view.

            “Nothing’s going to change in a year,” Nezumi called out, from out of sight, though his voice was soft.

            “What about two years?”

            “Nothing’s going to change at all.” Nezumi was back in view now. Standing looking around the hotel room as if expecting some article of clothing to jump out at him.

            “So eventually we’re supposed to get over each other.”

            Nezumi sighed. “I guess so.”

            “What if I do? And I meet someone else? And start a life with them? Maybe we’ll get married. Have kids together. What then?”

            Nezumi glanced at him. “Can I ask what you’re talking about?”

            “Won’t you regret this?”

            Nezumi squinted as if he had to look through sunlight to see Shion. “I forgot how full of nonsense you were. And stubborn. And thoroughly irritating.”

            A text notification sounded from Shion’s phone, and he didn’t want to look at it, but knew it had to be his mother or Safu.

            He took his phone from his pocket. It was Safu.

            _I’d let you keep shouting at him, but the only flight your mom could book tonight leaves in two hours. We’ve got to get to the airport and check in. I’m sorry, Shion._

            The airport was an hour away. Shion looked up at Nezumi, felt helpless, didn’t know what to do.

            “Is that our cue?” Nezumi asked.

            “Yeah.”

            “Let’s not keep them waiting.” Nezumi headed out, wheeling Shion’s suitcase, and Shion followed him with nothing else to do.

            They took the elevator downstairs, where a taxi had already been called. Again in the back seat, Shion turned to Nezumi beside him to see that the man was looking out the window.

            The airport was not busy, and they went through security quickly. While Shion, his mother, and Safu waited at the gate for their flight to arrive, Nezumi drifted from them. When Shion got up to use the bathroom, he found Nezumi at another gate, one that had a large window looking out at the planes coming in and out of the platform.

            Shion had been about to call out for him, but he left silently, allowed Nezumi more time to watch the planes.

            On their own plane, Shion and Nezumi again were separated from Karan and Safu. They sat together near the back of the plane, and Shion allowed Nezumi the window seat.

            “Have you been in a plane before now?” Shion asked him, after the plane had taken off.

            “I’ve never left Japan,” Nezumi said, not looking away from the window.

            “I’m going to New York in November for Skate America. Skaters get a few complimentary tickets for family. We missed our normal flight back because I was in the hospital, but we usually get first class tickets.”

            “One for your mother and Safu,” Nezumi said, after a moment.

            Shion examined his profile. “You could have one too.”

            “I don’t know any English.”

            “I’ll translate for you.”

            “I’ll be working,” Nezumi said.

            Shion gave up.

            Nezumi was the first to fall asleep, and Shion did so shortly after. When he woke, Nezumi was watching a cartoon movie on the little television on the back of the seat in front of him.

            Shion reached out, pulled free one of Nezumi’s earbuds, and Nezumi glanced at him.

            “You have drool,” Nezumi said, pointing to his own chin, so Shion wiped at his face.

            “What are you watching?” Shion asked, even though he recognized it.

            “A bunny is a cop but no one is taking her seriously.”

            “ _Zootopia_.”

            “You’ve seen it?”

            Shion smiled. “I spend a lot of time on planes. Safu and I like the animated films, they’re less stressful to watch before competitions. How much longer?”

            Nezumi exited from his movie to the live map of the plane. They were only halfway home.

            Shion put the earbud he’d taken from Nezumi in his own ear, and Nezumi switched back to the movie.

            “Want me to put something else on since you’ve seen it already?” he asked, even though Shion had a television of his own.

            “No, I like this movie.”

            They watched the rest of it, and then Shion instructed Nezumi to put on _Big Hero 6_ , and then there was only an hour and a half left of the flight.

            “What time will it be in Tokyo when we get in?” Nezumi asked.

            Shion quickly did the math. “Late afternoon, I think. Are you working?”

            “I quit the film.”

            “I know.”

            “I’m back at the theater. Just an understudy for the production playing right now, but I’m in rehearsals for a production coming out January.”

            “I’m glad you quit the film,” Shion said, and Nezumi tilted his head to look back out the window.

            “Me too,” he said quietly, to the clouds.

            By the time they landed, Shion felt groggy again. They stumbled out of the airport, and Safu looked for a taxi while Shion stood beside Nezumi.

            “Do you still have the plant?” he asked, suddenly remembering.

            Nezumi was rubbing at his eyes. He looked exhausted, and Shion wondered if he’d slept at all outside his nap on the plane since Shion’s fall on the ice.

            “Hm? Oh, yeah. The cactus. Yeah, I have it.”

            “Oh. Good.”

            “How many did you get?”

            Shion saw that Safu had hailed a cab. They’d part ways from Nezumi now, head to the train station while Nezumi would go home. Shion realized he’d never been in Nezumi’s home, and the thought was strange to him. “What?”

            “Plants. For your birthday. My guess was seven.”

            Shion stared at him. “Fourteen,” he finally said. “I got fourteen.”

            Nezumi smiled, a tired smile, but even so, Shion’s heart squeezed at the unexpectedness of it. “Fourteen,” Nezumi repeated, shaking his head as if it were a larger number than he could fathom.

            “Yeah,” Shion breathed.

            “Shion!” Safu called.

            Shion turned to see that his mother was getting in the taxi, and Safu was holding open the door. He looked back at Nezumi, opened his lips to say something – he wasn’t sure what – but Nezumi spoke first.

            “Let’s not kiss goodbye, okay?” Nezumi said, his lips twitching in a shadow of a smirk, and Shion laughed on accident, smiled and nodded.

            “Okay,” he agreed, stepping away from Nezumi, then again, and soon enough he was no longer beside the man.

            He helped the driver get his suitcase in the trunk, and then he was climbing into the car beside Safu, and then he was closing the door and buckling his seatbelt.

            When he looked out the window, he expected Nezumi to be gone, but the man was watching him still, and as the car pulled away from the curb of the airport, Nezumi lifted a hand, a brief wave.

            Shion couldn’t react in time to wave back, and Nezumi was out of sight.

*

Rehearsal had been canceled the days of the Skate America competition, the producer claiming to have a cold.

            Nezumi found it suspicious, but didn’t care if Akihiko had informed his producer of the dates of Shion’s next Grand Prix event. He slept in late and did nothing all day, then settled onto his couch with his phone when he knew Shion would be skating, which was an early hour of the morning in Tokyo despite being around noon in New York.

            It was the third week of November. A month previous, Shion had blacked out on the ice, and it was all the announcer talked about as Shion skated onto the rink now for his short program.

            Nezumi lowered the volume on his phone and didn’t pay attention to what the announcer was saying. He watched Shion carefully, but the skater looked well-rested, energetic. The short program was only a little over two minutes, and Shion skated it flawlessly, without surprise or incident. He received top marks from the judges, a score increased even from his short program in the Rostelecom Cup. Nezumi had researched the Grand Prix Final scoring system thoroughly, finding it utterly confusing. He didn’t know why they didn’t just rank from one to one hundred.

            The next night, Shion was skating at midnight – though of course, in New York, he was actually skating in the morning. Nezumi sat in his kitchen. He propped his phone against a box of crackers and cupped his mug of tea in both hands on the table.

            Again, he had the volume low to ignore the announcers. He knew what they’d be saying anyway – wondering if there would be a repeat of Shion’s last free skate routine, ending in him unconscious on the ice after landing the first quad axel the world had ever seen in competition.

            The free skate did not end in Shion passing out, nor a quad axel. He finished with a back-to-back double Lutz-single axel, and when he finished, he stood tall and smiled wide into his breaths, his lips parted as if he were laughing.

            Shion bowed while the audience cheered and the announcer shouted a list of praiseful adjectives. Flowers were thrown onto the ice. Asters, Nezumi realized, not having taken note before.

            Shion had been beautiful, and it occurred to Nezumi, as he stood up to wash his empty mug and left the live feed to play so he could hear Shion’s score, that he would never stop loving Shion if he kept watching his competitions.

            The Final was in three weeks, December eleventh. Nezumi had already loved Shion for too long.

            Nezumi dropped his mug in the sink with suds still pooling the bottom, dried his hands, and turned off the live feed on his phone just after Shion’s free skate score was announced as record breaking, the highest in men’s singles figure skating history.

*


	11. Chapter 11

Safu suggested Shion put the quad axel in the first half of his free skate the way he’d promised originally, while Karan insisted the double Lutz-single axel back-to-back jump he’d done in Skate America had been perfect, and there was no need to change the program from that.

            Shion continued practicing his free skate while attempting the quad axel as his final jump. He did not tell this to Safu or his mother, both of whom he knew would adamantly object, and he could not altogether fault them for their concern.

            He did not tell the interviewer, either, when he was asked the day before he was to fly to Marseille, where the Grand Prix Final would be taking place in five days.

            “I don’t know what my last jump will be in my free skate at the Final. I guess I’ll be as surprised as everyone else,” Shion said, laughing, and the interviewer, _My-name’s-Chinami-but-everyone-calls-me-Chi-so-please-feel-free-to-do-so-as-well,_ smiled back.

            “I can’t wait,” Chi said, adjusting her phone that was recording the conversation on the table.

            They sat in Karan’s bakery, and Chi had spent the first half of the interview distracted from her questions to exclaim over the baked goods Karan delivered to their table.

            “Now I want to get into something a little juicier.” Chi leaned closer to Shion across the table. “Everyone knows Marseille is the city of romance, so tell us about your romance, Shion.”

            “Isn’t Paris the city of romance?”

            Chi waved her hand. “Oh, they’re both in France, can they be so different?”

            Shion glanced over at the counter to see his mother dealing with a customer before looking back at Chi. “I don’t really have any romance to tell you about.”

            “But we know that’s not true.”

            “We do?”

            “What about Nezumi? He was at the hospital in Moscow after your fall.”

            Shion had seen the photographs of Nezumi walking beside him when they’d left the hospital. He’d seen the articles speculating as to what the actor’s presence beside Shion during his abrupt hospital visit might mean.

            “Nezumi was just making sure I was all right,” Shion said easily.

            “Doesn’t he live in Tokyo? That’s a – ” Chi consulted her small notepad – “ten-hour flight, isn’t it? A long way to go for a quick check-in with a friend.”

            Shion did not remind Chi that Safu had been there as well. He preferred not to start back those rumors.

            He offered Chi an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry I can’t be more interesting, but Nezumi and I are not romantically involved right now.”

            “Does that mean you will be in the future?”

            Shion blinked. “Well, I don’t think anyone can say for sure what will happen in the future,” he said slowly.

            “But you want to have a future with Nezumi, is that what you’re saying?” 

            “Well, no, that’s not what I’m saying.”

            “Then what are you saying, Shion? Everyone just wants to know the truth about you and Nezumi, so what is it? Was that kiss just a publicity stunt to gain press for _Hearts of Ice_ , were those articles on your alleged relationship during your coaching stint just rumors, or are you really in love?”

            Shion had dealt with the press and their probing questions for most of his career. He was accustomed to it, had never been bothered no matter what he’d been asked. He understood now that this was because what he’d been asked before had never truly mattered to him.

            This question mattered. This answer was important – not for the world, not for Chi, not for the article she would write, but for Shion.

            “Chi, can you do me a favor?” Shion asked, leaning closer to her across the table, and Chi leaned forward as well.

            “I would be honored to, Shion.”

            “Can you not ask me anymore questions about Nezumi? I know it’s your job, and I know that people are curious about my personal life, and I understand that, I really do. I know that as someone in the public light, I give up the right to some privacies, and I’ve always been perfectly happy to do so. But Nezumi is not a topic that I find easy to discuss, especially not with the press.”

            Chi looked at Shion with wide eyes. “Even if I don’t ask, someone will,” she said, after a moment.

            Shion nodded. “Yes. I know that. But you write for _International Figure Skating Magazine_ , right? So I’m assuming this will be published in _IFS_ , where other interviewers will read it and hopefully understand that I’m just like anyone else. And when something in my life is complicated and painful and hurts to even think about, like anyone else, I don’t really enjoy discussing it at length with strangers.”

            Chi searched Shion’s face. “What’s going on between you and Nezumi is painful and hurts to think about?” she asked, almost a whisper, and then immediately she pressed her hands to her lips, then dropped them. “I’m sorry. I guess that’s exactly the kind of question you don’t want.”

            Shion offered a small smile. “I know you’re just doing your job, but it would mean a lot to me if my fans could speculate on my relationship with Nezumi without involving me in their speculations.”

            Chi straightened up, nodded once. “I think that’s understandable,” she replied, her tone professional again. “Let’s change the topic.”

            “Thank you, Chi,” Shion said, and she smiled at him.

            “So tell us, do you think you’ll try escargots when you’re in Marseille? I hear that’s a delicacy there, and I must say, I’ve always been curious.”

            The interview proceeded without mention of Nezumi, and the next day, Safu emailed Shion the article Chi had published in _IFS,_ where the interview had been posted verbatim with a small note at the bottom by Chi.

            _I would like to say for all readers that Shion was incredibly polite when he made the request that we as the press and his fans give him space on this particular topic. While I cannot tell any of my colleagues how to proceed with their careers, I hope they will respect Shion’s wishes. He is an incredible figure skater, but after our interview I could see that he is an incredible person as well. Shion, if you’re reading this, I wish you the best of luck at the Grand Prix Final – Please make Japan proud, we are all rooting for your success!_

            Shion did not read the interview itself. He did not need to, and there was not a chance to anyway – his taxi had arrived at the airport, and he and his mother were getting out to head to the gate for the plane leaving for Amsterdam, where they’d get on a connecting flight to Marseille.

            Safu would be coming in a few days – December tenth – to get in the night before the Grand Prix Final would begin. Shion had requested from the FSU an extra plane ticket for the tenth of December, and he’d called Kiyoko to get Nezumi’s address in Tokyo, where he’d mailed the ticket in an envelope alongside an all access pass to the Grand Prix Final event.

            He did not expect Nezumi to come. Every skater in the Grand Prix Final was allowed two complementary tickets for family and friends, and because Karan was a coach and automatically got her own ticket, Shion always had an extra ticket he never used. To send it to Nezumi meant nothing.

            On the plane, Shion looked out the window as they flew over Tokyo and pretended he could see into the buildings below, pretended he could see the people inside them, pretended he could see a ballet dancer on a stage in the middle of rehearsal, lifting one leg straight back higher and higher, even past a ninety-degree angle, even more than that.

            _What’s that called?_

_What happened to just wanting to watch and not wanting to learn? It’s an arabesque._

_Have I told you I find it sexy that you’re so flexible?_

_You’ve told me._

_I could remind you._

_My memory works just fine._

_Hey, Nezumi, guess what? I find it sexy that you’re so flexible. Very sexy. Incredibly sexy. Intoxicatingly sexy._

_That’s enough adjectives for one day, don’t you think?_

_Super sexy. Okay, I’m done._

_You’re done making a fool out of yourself? I doubt that._

_Painfully sexy._

_Painful? You’re in pain right now?_

_Yes. It hurts me, how sexy you are. You hurt me, Nezumi._

_And it hurts me, how idiotic you are._

_So we both hurt each other._

_Sure, Shion. We both hurt each other._

            Shion closed his eyes. He hadn’t really been paying attention to what was outside the plane window anyway.

*

_And when something in my life is complicated and painful and hurts to even think about, like anyone else, I don’t really enjoy discussing it at length with strangers._

            Nezumi exited out of the article on his phone. He was walking back home from the theater, got to his building, picked up his mail from the mat outside his door, let himself in.

            He put on water to boil for a cheap packet of ramen and sifted through his mail, discarding the flyer for someone’s garage band concert, glancing at a credit card bill before putting it aside, pausing at an envelope where his name and address were written in familiar handwriting.

            He looked at the return address, typed out on a sticker with a puppy on the edge of it, before turning the envelope over and slipping his thumb beneath a corner of the flap to open it.

            Shion must have licked it closed, because there was no tape.

            Inside was a roundtrip plane ticket to Marseille, France, to leave Tokyo on the tenth of December – in three days – and return to Tokyo five days after that. There was a laminated card that read, _Grand Prix of Figure Skating Final, Marseille – Event Skater Special Guest – All Access Pass – December 11 th-14th. _

            Nezumi took these items out and peered back into the envelope, but there was nothing else. He turned the envelope over again, examined the outside around his and Shion’s addresses and the stamp, then checked his kitchen floor to make sure nothing had fallen out.

            He couldn’t find a note, even after getting on his hands and knees and making sure nothing had slid under his fridge when he hadn’t noticed.

            Nezumi stood up again. He had rehearsal the day of his flight to Marseille and back, though like with Skate America, rehearsals on the dates of the event itself were not-so-suspiciously cancelled.

            Not that Nezumi was considering going. He wasn’t. His flight to Moscow had been a mistake, a decision made when he hadn’t been thinking at all, when his mind had been completely blank, or if not, then full of static and fog and panic and fear and not much else.

            Now, Nezumi was very calm. Could think rationally. Was not going to go to this event, planned on not even watching it at all. To read Shion’s interview had been an accident, something that had popped up on his Twitter, an account Kiyoko had set up for Nezumi that he hadn’t gotten around to deleting.

            The popping sound of rushed bubbles brought Nezumi’s attention to his boiling water, and he reached into his cupboard for a pack of ramen. He set a timer on his phone, then emptied the noodles into the pot after putting the flavor packet aside.

            _That stuff has a lot of MSG. It’s really bad for you. You’re Japanese, aren’t you? You should know better than to use the flavor packets they give you and add your own seasonings. Tell me you at least add some chopped vegetables and herbs._

_I happen to like MSG._

_As a ballet dancer, you really need to learn to take care of your body. Especially if I’m going to be coaching you, I can’t have my student eating this type of crap. What you put in your body has a lot to do with your performance._

_What I put in my body, huh?_

_Don’t be so immature._

_What nutrients have you got, then? What’s the health benefit of putting you in my body?_

_Shut up, Nezumi._

_I don’t know, I’m gonna have to see some nutrition facts on you before any more intercourse can be had._

_You’re such a child!_

_I don’t know why you’re laughing. I thought what I put in my body was a serious matter._

_You’re so stupid._

_Stop kissing me, I haven’t seen those nutrition facts yet._

_You really think you’re funny, don’t you?_

_It helps that my audience laughs so easily._

_I’m laughing at your face._

_Very well thought out comeback. I’d give it a seven out of ten, points off for lack of creativity. And that stupid grin of yours kind of ruins any possibility for a scathing delivery._

            Nezumi’s phone timer went off, jolting him. He took a spoon from the drawer beside the stove and poked at the noodles to separate them from their cube. He stared down at them for a moment, then opened the flavor packet and emptied its contents into the pot.

*

Shion spent his first day in Marseille sight-seeing with two of his friends that were also in the event, figure skaters from Canada and China whom he’d known since he first started competing. They visited the biggest tourist attractions recommended by the concierge at the hotel and ended the day at the Old Port, sitting on the edge of a pier and watching the boats drift in water that looked black. It was chilly but not unbearable, as winter had only just hit the city, and Shion felt warm in his coat. He had tilted his head up to look at the stars, though of course, there were none, the city lights and pollution disguising them as ink.

            Shion enjoyed practicing his English and trying to learn a bit of French. He’d tried escargots and had texted Safu a picture of the plate of ratatouille – another movie they’d watched together on a plane ride years before – that he’d ordered for dinner.

            Once it got late, he and the other two skaters went to a bar, ordering wine because that felt properly French even though they all knew better than to drink before an event. They decided to split one glass, and sat passing it around before finishing it and ordering a second to share. Shion quickly felt sleepy.

            Graeme, the Canadian skater whom Shion had stood next to on the podium in three previous years, was slurring in French while Shion sat entranced, trying to learn.

            “Go slower,” Shion said, his English clumsier with wine on his lips.

            “Here’s one for you. _Je t’aime_.” Graeme giggled and sipped from the wine glass before passing it to Jin, the oldest of the three at twenty-eight. He would be retiring after this competition, his last year representing China in the Grand Prix.

            Shion frowned. He knew what _Je t’aime_ meant. “Don’t make fun of me.”

            “You men need to learn to hold your liquor. You’ve drank not a half of a glass each,” Jin chastised, his English slower than theirs, less certain.

            “I’m not making fun of you. You should say that to your secret lover, French is very seductive. Repeat after me – _Je t’aime._ ”

            “I don’t love you,” Shion argued. He’d been resting his head on his arm, which had been flat across the bar, but now he straightened up

            “You love that Nezumi,” Graeme said, laughing again.

            Jin elbowed him. “Hey, stop that.”

            Shion felt hot. He gladly took the wine glass when Jin offered it, downed a larger sip than his fair share.

            “Is he coming?” Graeme was asking.

            “Don’t ask him these things,” Jin interrupted.

            “I don’t know,” Shion said, taking another drink of the wine, forgetting to pass it.

            “Did you ask him to?” Graeme pressed.

            “Yeah,” Shion whispered.

            “Graeme,” Jin said, almost angrily, and Graeme didn’t ask anything else after that.

            Shion got to his hotel room at four in the morning. His first day of competition wasn’t for another two days, so he didn’t bother setting an alarm. He brushed his teeth halfheartedly, forgetting the toothpaste, undid his belt, and fell onto his bed without taking off his clothes.

            In total, he, Graeme, and Jin had split eight glasses of wine.

            Shion laid over the bedsheets, lacking the energy to pull them down. His head was three inches lower than the pillow, but he didn’t bother to scooch up. He closed his eyes and couldn’t tell if he fell immediately asleep or just into a daydream.

            _You know, ballet actually originated in Italy, so it doesn’t really make sense for the terms to be French._

_King Louis XIV popularized it in France._

_You know the history of ballet?_

_Why do you sound so surprised? Just because I don’t constantly babble like you doesn’t mean I don’t also have a wide array of knowledge._

_Who taught you the history of ballet?_

_No one you know._

_Was it your mother?_

_Shion._

_You can talk about her with me._

_I don’t want to._

_Okay. But you can. If you ever want to. I’d like to know about her._

_Yeah. So would I._

            Shion woke with a gasp, couldn’t remember what he’d been dreaming of, glanced at the clock and saw he’d only been asleep for three hours.

            He got up to pee, examined his face in the mirror, came to the conclusion that he looked terrible, and returned to bed. He tried to dream of the past.

*

Nezumi was reading his script on the bus when a familiar voice addressed him.

            “Is this seat taken?”

            He looked up, saw his old agent pointing to the empty seat beside him. He closed his script as Kiyoko sat down.

            “You headed home?” she asked.        

            Nezumi tucked his hair behind his ear. “Yeah. Don’t you live the opposite way?”

            “My new client lives ten minutes from your place. I’m dropping off some contracts.”

            Nezumi nodded. “Big star?”

            “Could be with my help,” Kiyoko said, smiling. “So the Final is in a two days.”

            Nezumi’s plane ticket was in the envelope on the counter of his kitchen, where he hadn’t moved it since opening it. The flight would leave at five the next morning. It was a fifteen-hour connecting flight. He wouldn’t get into Marseille until, with the time difference, after midnight.

            It would be a long trip. There was no reason for Nezumi to take it.

            “Guess so,” Nezumi said.

            “You going?”

            “Why would I?”

            “Because the love of your life is about to compete in the biggest figure skating event of the season.”

            Nezumi lifted a hand to shield his yawn. He hadn’t been getting much sleep. “You’re no longer my agent, you don’t have to keep fabricating stories.”

            “Didn’t you quit the film to refocus your life? Attempt for happiness? Turn over a new leaf?”

            “I thought in the resignation contract it said professional differences.”

            Kiyoko sighed. “I forgot how useless it was to try and help you.”

            “Glad to remind you,” Nezumi replied, glancing out the window of the bus. “My stop’s coming up.”

            “I remember.”

            “Good seeing you,” Nezumi said, a cue for Kiyoko to stand and let him out of his seat, but she didn’t.

            “He called me for your address. I know he sent you a ticket. Just go, Nezumi, he’s not going to give you another chance.”

            Nezumi tucked his script into his drawstring bag. “When you were my career agent, it was irksome that you’d attempt to get involved in my personal life. Now it’s getting invasive.”

            “You don’t have a personal life. You go to work and do nothing else. You have no friends or family, you have no one, and it’ll always be that way unless you give someone a chance,” Kiyoko snapped, finally standing up, but Nezumi didn’t move.

            “You’ve gotten a little rude since I last saw you,” he finally said, once he was certain he could keep his voice even. He stood up, slid out of the seat, held onto a center pole in the aisle, and waited for the bus to stop.

            “Yeah, well. Only the stupidest agents actually care about their clients’ happiness in addition to their careers, but here I am, giving a damn about a guy who so adamantly insists on fucking up his own life. It makes a person bitter,” Kiyoko muttered.

            “I’m not your client anymore,” Nezumi reminded.

            “If I don’t care about you, Nezumi, who the fuck do you think is going to bother to do it instead?” Kiyoko said shortly, and then the bus was stopping, and Nezumi was glad to get off.

            On the short walk to his building, he looked up at the sky, wishing he could see stars in the city. He’d heard that they were beautiful.

            _You shouldn’t be so rude to your agent, she’s just trying to help you._

_She’s trying to do her job and make money off of me._

_I think she actually cares about you._

_Oh? Is that why she has cameramen stalk us day and night?_

_She came by the other day when you were in Tokyo and asked if I knew when your birthday was so she could get you something._

_How nice of her._

_It was nice. I promised her I wouldn’t tell you, but she’s getting you a Kindle. See, she cares._

_I prefer physical books._

_Nezumi, don’t be difficult. It’s the sentiment that counts._

_And what sentiment is that?_

_I know you’re being sarcastic, but sometimes I really can’t tell. Do you really find it so impossible that people care about you? Can you really not see it?_

_Weren’t you supposed to be showing me a sit spin? We’re in the middle of a lesson here._

_If you can’t see it, then let me tell you because it’s important that you know. Kiyoko cares about you, genuinely, as more than her client._

_I hate when you say things so earnestly, it’s creepy._

_And I care about you. You know that, right? You have to know that._

_Shion –_

_I need to know that you understand. I care about you. Beyond these lessons, beyond our relationship or whatever it is we’re doing, beyond anything to do with me. I want the best for you. I want the world to be kind to you. I want you to be happy. Do you know that?_

_Shion._

_Do you?_

_Yeah. Yeah, I know that._

            At his apartment, Nezumi went straight to the envelope on his kitchen counter. He took out the plane ticket, examined it, replaced it in the envelope beside the event access pass, then stood in front of his trashcan, his foot on the lever and the lid open. He held the envelope over the trashcan and tried to even out his breaths, waiting for his grip to loosen.

*

Shion stood in the center of the rink before his short program. He could hear the announcer’s voice bellowing, but could make out none of the words.

            He scanned the crowd, heard his name being chanted, saw Japanese flags being waved with two rainbow flags amongst them. He was not looking at the flags, but the faces, kept looking and looking, checked the rinkside last, the space only accessible to the press and those with full access passes.

            He saw a few of his fellow skaters, their coaches, his mother and Safu. There was no one else, no one else that mattered, even though the arena was booked.

            Shion’s music started, and so did he. His short program music was instrumental. He had always loved to skate during the crescendos, felt the volume of his heart echoing that of the music.

            Shion couldn’t skate with his eyes closed, but he couldn’t see the crowd while he skated either. He had known Nezumi would not come, but while he skated, he pretended the actor was there. That they were alone in the rink in Shion’s hometown, that hours before Nezumi had cried into his shoulder in his bed, that Shion had held him and wondered how someone so strong could feel so breakable, huddling against his chest.

            He pretended that he had just asked Nezumi if he wanted to go to the rink even though it was two in the morning, he pretended they’d walked over in the middle of the night with the windless air heavy and hot on their skin, he pretended they’d gotten to the rink and he’d just asked Nezumi if he could show him his programs.

            Shion skated his short program at the Grand Prix Final pretending his only purpose in skating was to distract the man he loved from the hollow in his chest, and when Shion finished, his own chest was searing, and his own eyes were wet, and there was such a thick silence in the arena that for a startling second, Shion thought he’d lost his sense of hearing completely.

            The silence lasted for no more than a few seconds, and then the cheering hit, loud and abrupt, the announcer shouting something, and Shion could make out no words at all, nothing at all.

            Shion looked at the crowd that cheered for him, reached up to wipe at his eyes, and tried to smile at his audience because he loved to skate, it had always made him happy, and there was no reason for there to be a difference now.

            _Twenty-five is old for a competitive figure skater, isn’t it?_

_There are some older skaters that I know still competing._

_But it’s old._

_I suppose so, yes, I’m around average retirement age._

_So are you going to retire?_

_My body feels fine, and I love it, so I don’t see why I would._

_What will you do after?_

_After I retire? I don’t know. I can’t see myself doing anything but skating. I do like academia though, I’d be interested in going to college._

_College._

_Yeah. They have some good universities in Tokyo. Safu studied in the city, she loved it._

_But as of now, you see yourself figure skating for, what, two more years?_

_I wouldn’t mind if I did it forever._

_Forever._

_Yeah. It’s a nice concept, isn’t it? Forever?_

_I prefer time spans with ending points._

_If you could pick any moment to stretch out into forever, Nezumi, which one would it be?_

            Shion turned. Bowed to the other side of the audience. He knew from the volume of their cheers and his own knowledge of his short program that this had been his best performance of the routine yet. He was confident that he had broken a world record, but the short program record had already been set by himself two years before.

            Shion turned again. Watched the asters that his fans always threw fall onto the ice like snow, as if soon they would melt. His eyes still burned. He had the strangest sense of homesickness, and found it difficult to stay standing. He tried to take deep breaths. He wanted not just to cry, but to sob.

            His name was being shouted by, it seemed, everyone in the arena, but after half a minute it was one voice that he heard clearly, not as loud as the others, but known to him, familiar to him, a voice that had been whispered in his ear and been pressed to his skin and been shouted in a hotel room and been hissed in a curse and been curled in a laugh and been breathed in the latest hour of the night against his very lips.

            “Hey – Shion!”

            Shion turned again, and his breath shuddered out of him, his nose instantly running, his eyes dripping so that he couldn’t see, but he skated forward anyway, as fast as he could – he was not tired at all.

            Nezumi opened the door of the rink even though he was not allowed to do that, and Shion crashed into him, was caught by him, held up by him, pulled forward by him into Nezumi’s body, solid and there and nowhere else.

            Nezumi’s arms were around Shion, tight and fast and strong. Shion’s hands were caught between their bodies where not even air could fit. He grasped Nezumi’s jacket. He cried into Nezumi’s jacket collar, hard.

            Nezumi pulled away from him, and Shion only allowed it because he couldn’t breathe. There were Nezumi’s fingers on his cheek now, wiping below his eyes.

            “Why are you crying?” Nezumi asked quietly, and Shion shouldn’t have heard him because everything else was so loud, but he heard him perfectly, heard him and nothing else.

            Shion didn’t have a reply for Nezumi. He was trying to stop crying but found it hard. He felt emptied out, nothing left inside of him but his heart, swelling larger and larger to fill the sudden space around it until Shion was nothing but a beating thing, shaking, shuddering with the potency of his pulse.

            Nezumi stopped trying to wipe at Shion’s face. Maybe he realized it was pointless. Every time he slid his fingers or the sleeve of his jacket over Shion’s skin, Shion just cried more.

            “You should stop crying,” Nezumi said.

            Shion was breathing too hard. He nodded as if Nezumi’s words were easy to obey.

            “I can’t kiss you like this, you look disgusting,” Nezumi said, and Shion’s exhale came out as a laugh, and then Nezumi was kissing him even though he’d said he wouldn’t.

            Nezumi’s hand was in Shion’s hair. His kiss was hard and incredibly wet, and Shion felt along with the heat of Nezumi’s mouth the warmth of Nezumi’s fingers in his hair, the tightening of those fingers.

            He thought, just briefly, of Nezumi’s agent, and her request that their second kiss for the press be something passionate, fervent, desperate.

            Shion tightened his grip around the front of Nezumi’s jacket and pulled the man closer to him. He could not breathe at all and never wanted to again.

            He had stopped crying by the time Nezumi stopped kissing him. He stood in the absence of Nezumi’s lips and wiped at his face with the sleeve of his costume, but it wasn’t absorbent, so Nezumi wiped at his cheeks again with a different part of his jacket sleeve.

            “You’re here,” Shion managed, when he was dry and had enough breath in him to speak.

            “Where else do you want me to be?” Nezumi asked softly.

            “Is it for forever?” Shion asked, because he had to be sure, he had to know.

            Nezumi looked at him with eyes that skated between Shion’s, quick and bright and silver. He didn’t say anything, but after a moment, he nodded.

            To Shion, Nezumi looked terrified, hesitant to make this promise of a time without an end point, but Shion did not mind that Nezumi was scared.

            Shion had time, now, to show Nezumi that there was no reason to be.

*


	12. Chapter 12

Nezumi had bought roses because everywhere was sold out of asters.

            “People usually give him asters,” Safu pointed out, while she and Nezumi stood at the side of the kiss-and-cry where Shion and Karan were awaiting the announcement of Shion’s score. Safu had pulled Nezumi aside when he’d attempted to follow Shion in front of the kiss-and-cry cameras and told Nezumi to give Shion some space, or the man would never stop crying, and she was starting to get worried.

            Nezumi had allowed her to pull him away. She had a solid point.

            “Where are people getting those?” Nezumi demanded, staring around at all the bouquets surrounding Shion’s chair that people had given him as he’d walked away from the rink. “Every damn shop around the arena was sold out.”

            “You have to call ahead,” Safu said, and Nezumi thought she looked as if she were trying not to smile.

            “What about the spontaneous people?” Nezumi muttered, and Safu laughed abruptly, cupping her hand over her lips.

            “I guess those people have to settle for roses,” Safu said, once she’d stopped laughing and dropped her hand.

            Nezumi frowned and glanced at Shion, who was staring at him. On Nezumi’s glance, he instantly smiled and beckoned Nezumi to come forward with his hand.

            Nezumi shook his head, tilting his chin at the cameras to indicate that he preferred to stay out of the limelight. Truthfully, Nezumi was still taking note of Shion’s pink cheeks and wet eyes and didn’t think it was safe enough to go near the figure skater yet. As it was, Nezumi’s sleeve was completely covered in the guy’s snot and tears.

            “When did you decide to come?” Safu asked.

            “An hour before my flight left. I thought I’d miss it, especially after I had to waste time digging the ticket out of my trash.”

            “Why was your ticket in the trash?” Safu asked curiously, and Nezumi stared at her, realizing what he’d admitted.

            “An accident,” he muttered, looking away from Safu as she grinned at him.

            “I saw you on the plane.”

            “You did?” Nezumi glanced back at her, trying to remember why he hadn’t seen her. He supposed he’d been flustered, distracted.

            “You walked in late, after everyone else had boarded, of course I saw you. You looked rather ruffled, out of breath, your hair a mess. Hard not to notice. And then on our connecting flight, you sat only two seats in front of me. You started watching _The Secret Life of Pets_ and then switched it to _Inside Out._ ”

            “The pet one was terrible,” Nezumi said. “You didn’t tell Shion. He was surprised to see me.”

            “I didn’t know if you’d make it to him. I have to admit, I was convinced we’d land in Marseille and you’d immediately book a flight back to Tokyo. I didn’t want to get his hopes up.”

            Nezumi didn’t blame her. He’d given her every reason not to believe he’d make it to Shion.

            Neither said anything for a minute. Nezumi watched as interviewers talked to Shion and Karan. A girl kept popping out of nowhere and handing Shion tissues.

            “He skated as if he knew you were watching him, don’t you think?” Safu asked quietly.

            Nezumi didn’t know what she meant, but couldn’t ask as the announcers were talking about Shion’s score, and then the numbers appeared on the screen they faced. A world record, the banner at the bottom of the screen said. Shion had beaten his previous world record-setting short program score by twenty-two point five points.

            At the kiss-and-cry, Shion was sobbing into his mother’s shoulder as she hugged him.

            “Does he always cry so much at these things?” Nezumi asked, trying not to cringe.

            “He never cries after he skates,” Safu said, and she sounded oddly cheerful.

            Nezumi peeked at her, saw that she was smiling at him.

            “What?”

            “It’s because of you.”

            “What is?”

            “That he’s this terrible mess.”

            “Why are you smiling at me then?” Nezumi asked, completely confused.

            Safu just smiled wider. “It’s not always a bad thing to cry. Crying is a release of intense emotion.”

            “It probably can’t be healthy to have as much intense emotion bottled up as he does,” Nezumi remarked, looking back at Shion, who was out of his mother’s neck and now accepting more tissues from the girl.

            “A lot of people heard you when you promised him forever. The whole scene was on the big screen, broadcasted on live television. You can’t take that back now,” Safu said casually, while Nezumi watched Shion mop his face up, balling tissues in his hands, accepting more, looking up at Nezumi and then smiling immediately through his tears.

            “I know,” Nezumi said, and again, Shion was beckoning for him to come closer.

            This time, Nezumi didn’t argue, walked into the range of the cameras. Karan stood up after collecting Shion’s used tissues, so Nezumi sat beside Shion, offered the crying man the roses he’d bought because he couldn’t find asters in the five shops he searched.

            Shion took them and cried harder, and Nezumi watched him in amazement.

            “Why are you crying?” he asked, ignoring the people who were talking to him, asking him questions, trying to make an interview out of this when Nezumi was not here for them, he was only here for Shion, he only had time for Shion, all of his time was for Shion – he’d promised it on television, hadn’t he?

            Shion shook his head. “I don’t know,” he breathed through his sobs. “I just can’t stop.”

            “You should try. It’s getting a little excessive.”

            Shion laughed with tears on his face. “People usually buy me asters,” he said, touching one of the roses, rubbing a petal between his thumb and forefinger.

            “Yeah. I figured you must be sick of them by now,” Nezumi replied easily. “They’re kind of ugly anyway.”

            Shion laughed again, rubbed his face with yet another tissue that was handed to him, and Nezumi wondered if he could demand someone just bring Shion a box.

            Shion looked up at Nezumi with tears caught in the white of his eyelashes. He looked up at Nezumi in a way Nezumi had never been looked at before.

            “You’re really here,” Shion said, clutching the roses to his chest.

            “I’m really here,” Nezumi confirmed. “And congratulations on the record breaking. Even though it was your record to begin with.”

            “Thank you,” Shion whispered, wiping again at his face.

            “I know everyone is telling you this, but you were probably crying too hard to hear. And anyway, you should hear it from me, all of these people but your mother and Safu are strangers. Your skating today was the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen,” Nezumi said, and it occurred to him that he hadn’t seen many amazing things in his life to begin with, so maybe his comment wouldn’t mean that much, but it was the most honest thing he could offer.

            To Nezumi’s surprise and relief, Shion did not start another bout of crying. If anything, he seemed to sober up, sit up a little straighter, wiped at his face a last time and looked at Nezumi in an unwavering way.

            “Seeing you at the side of the rink was the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen,” Shion said, very seriously, and Nezumi thought Shion must not have seen very amazing things in his life either, which was odd, seeing as he’d travelled around the world for his competitions.

            Not surprising, that the guy probably walked around with his eyes closed.

            “You should pay more attention to your surroundings,” Nezumi said, and Shion’s smile was wide and sudden.

            He turned away from Nezumi at a particularly loud call for his attention, and Nezumi turned to see that a woman with a microphone was standing incredibly close and looking at Shion almost desperately.

            “Do you mind if we just steal a bit of your time?” the woman asked, and Nezumi knew she and the other members of the press had been trying to get Shion’s attention for a while.

            “Of course,” Shion said happily, as if he hadn’t spent the last ten minutes completely ignoring her.

             “First, Shion, congratulations on your incredible score, what an unbelievable achievement you’ve made today. Can you tell us how are you feeling right now, in this very moment?”

            “I’ve never been happier in my life. And of course I’m very grateful for all of the support I’m getting, and honored to be here at Marseille as a part of this competition at all.”

            “Why were you crying so hard after your short program? What were you feeling in that moment?”

            “I felt very emotional after skating that program. I thought – I thought that I had lost something important to me, and I felt that loss all at once after skating the program, and then – ”

            “Nezumi,” the woman interrupted. “That’s what you’re referring to, right? Or whom, I should say. You felt you had lost Nezumi.”

            Nezumi raised an eyebrow at the interviewer, who turned to him, then seemed to rather quickly look back at Shion.

            “Yes. That’s correct, it was Nezumi,” Shion was saying. He sounded very calm, and Nezumi felt himself relaxing, not worrying so much that Shion would break back out into sobs. It seemed, Nezumi hoped, that Shion had gotten it all out of him.

            “That post-program embrace and kiss between you and Nezumi was very intense and heartwarming for your fans to see, especially after your latest interview that left many worried for you and the heartache you seemed to be enduring. Do you have anything to comment on it?”

            Nezumi leaned back in the chair, watched Shion with some interest as to what he’d reply, though he was more eager for the interview to be over. He wanted to have Shion alone. The cameras and public in general were quickly getting old.

            “I don’t want anyone to worry about me, though I’m honored to have been in so many peoples’ thoughts. As you can see, all is well, and I’m very happy. Someone who’s always given me the best advice and support once told me that a broken heart is never the end of the story, and I know that to be true.”

            “Thank you so much for your time, Shion, and congratulations again on your breathtaking program and record breaking score. I’m so excited to see what you will show us in two days with your free skate.”

            “Thank you,” Shion said.

            “Nezumi, do you mind if we ask you just one or two questions as well?” the woman asked, when Nezumi had been expecting her to go away.

            He stared at her. “Yes, I mind,” he finally said.

            The woman blinked. “Oh.”

            “He prefers not to speak with the press,” Shion said kindly.

            “I’m quite shy,” Nezumi added, offering a smile he happened to know was rather charming.

            The interviewer stared at him for a second, then nodded in a flustered way and stood up. “Well, ah, in any case, thank you again for your time, Shion,” she said, before walking off the kiss-and-cry platform.

            Shion’s hand was around Nezumi’s wrist, and then Shion was standing, pulling Nezumi up, holding his roses in his other hand and leaving the other bouquets strewn around the chairs. “Come, we have to leave this area for the next skater.”

            “You’re just going to leave those there?” Nezumi asked, pointing at a bouquet of asters.

            “Someone will get them,” Shion said, seeming unconcerned.

            They joined Karan and Safu at the bottom of the stands around the rink where they were watching the next skater’s short program, already half a minute in. There wasn’t much room on the stand, but Shion pulled Nezumi down beside him to the point where Nezumi was nearly sitting on him.

            “Don’t you want to change out of that thing? Aren’t you getting cold?” Nezumi asked, pointing at Shion’s costume.

            “My blood’s still rushing pretty fast, but I should change soon. I just want to watch Graeme’s routine, he’s my friend.”

            “Do you want my jacket?” Nezumi asked, and Shion, who’d been watching the ice fairly intently, suddenly looked at him.

            He smiled first, and it broke into a laugh.

            “What?” Nezumi asked, bewildered.

            “You’re really doing everything, aren’t you?”

            “What is that supposed to mean?”

            “Dramatic entrance. Passionate kiss. Roses. Offering me your jacket,” Shion listed.

            Nezumi stared at the guy. “And what exactly is your point?”

            “Nothing, nothing,” Shion said happily, still smiling, looking back at the ice now. “It’s just all very…boyfriend-y.”

            Nezumi leaned back, narrowed his eyes. “That’s not a word.”

            “It’s in the dictionary.”

            “You’re being ridiculous.”

            “And you’re being boyfriend-y.”

            “Try not to annoy me right now, I’m jet-lagged,” Nezumi muttered, looking away from Shion, hearing the man giggle beside him. “Is he good?” Nezumi asked, in indication of the figure skater on the rink to change the topic from whatever nonsense Shion was spewing.

            “Graeme? Yes, he’s very good. He’s won silver to three of my gold medals.”

            “What about today?” Nezumi asked, because Graeme had just stopped his program, was smiling and bowing and waving and trying to catch the flowers being thrown at him – noticeably not asters – and Nezumi hadn’t been paying attention to his program while he’d skated.

            “It’s his strongest program yet.”

            “So he’s your biggest threat.”

            “I don’t think of my friends as threats.”

            “You should. You’re in competition.”

            “I still want them to do well,” Shion said, and Nezumi glanced at him again, watched his profile, found him completely insane.

            Shion peeked at him, smiled again, that easy smile, and Nezumi thought it seemed even easier today.

            “I’m really glad you’re here,” Shion said, still smiling.

            Nezumi squinted at him. “I know,” he said slowly.

            “I didn’t think you were going to come.”

            “Well, I did.”

            “Yeah. You did,” Shion said, looking at Nezumi too happily, so Nezumi looked away from him, at the screen where they were announcing the next skater.

            “Is that your friend too?”

            “Who? Oh, Jin? Yeah, he is.”

            Nezumi shook his head but didn’t say anything. The announcer informed the crowd that this would be Jin’s last short program, as it was his last Grand Prix Final. He was twenty-eight and had never won a medal, but had qualified for the previous eight Grand Prix events.

            “I really like Jin’s short program this season,” Shion whispered, while the music began. “There aren’t that many jumps, but his step sequences are really graceful. I’ve always admired him for that.”

            “He’s never won a medal,” Nezumi said, watching the skater from China glide around the rink in large arches.

            “That doesn’t mean he’s not incredibly talented. It means the type of skating he does is not the kind that generally racks up scoring points.”

            “As in, it lacks jumps.”

            “They like jumps,” Shion confirmed.

            Nezumi didn’t know if Shion planned to do a quad axel in his free skate in two days. He didn’t want Shion to do it, but he didn’t tell the man this.

            It was Shion’s decision, and Nezumi wasn’t going to allow his own opinions to influence Shion’s. He trusted Shion to know what was best for him, and especially after his fall in Moscow, he trusted that Shion would do better to take care of himself.

            “Of course,” Shion was continuing, “points are awarded not only for technicality and program difficulty. Even so, an incredible step sequence can’t really carry you if you’re lacking in the other categories.”

            Nezumi liked that Shion was explaining it to him. He liked that Shion was passionate about skating, knowledgeable, interested, but more than that, Nezumi just liked to hear Shion talk. Nezumi knew Shion’s ramblings would get irritating soon, but now it was incredible to just hear his voice, to be beside him to listen.

            Jin was not the last skater, but Shion still got up after his program, and Nezumi followed him into the dressing room, watched while Shion peeled off his costume and dressed in jeans, a t-shirt, a sweatshirt, and a jacket over top.

            Dressed, he turned to Nezumi and walked to him, stopped in front of him and reached out, wound his arms around Nezumi’s waist and looked up at him.

            “Hi,” Shion said.

            Nezumi wished they were both wearing less clothing. It was impossible to feel Shion’s warmth through their layers, and all he could receive was the pressure of Shion’s arms, the light weight of them loosely wrapped around him. “It’s probably frowned upon to have sex in here.”

            Shion smiled. “I wasn’t going to suggest that.”

            “Then what are you doing?”

            “Touching you. Feeling that you’re actually here.”

            “It’s not that shocking,” Nezumi said, but he was reaching out too, touching Shion’s scar with his thumb, dropping his hand to touch Shion’s smile.

            “Yes, it is. Why are you here? Nothing changed from Moscow. Nothing changed from before.”

            Nezumi didn’t have an answer. Knew Shion was looking for reassurance, something to prove to him that Nezumi was going to stay, but he didn’t have anything like that.

            “Nothing changed,” Nezumi said, lifting his hand into Shion’s hair. There had been a little gel in it to keep it slicked back during his routine, and Nezumi ruffled his hand through it, loosened the strands that hadn’t already been scattered from sweat and movement. It wasn’t as soft as usual, but once Shion showered, it would be.

            “Nezumi. You can’t let me think you want a relationship if you don’t.”

            “I do.”

            “I can’t do casual with you. I can’t do something undefined or temporary or uncertain. I want to be with you, do you understand? I want to be a part of your life.”

            “You are,” Nezumi said. He dropped his hand from Shion’s hair. Looked for other places to touch him, but everywhere other than his face was covered in some type of clothing.

            Shion looked at him for a solid moment. “I know I can’t ask you to promise me forever. I know anything can happen in a relationship, I know we could fall out of love, I know that.”

            “If you asked me, I would give it to you,” Nezumi said, watching the crease of Shion’s confusion between his eyes.

            “If I asked you what?”

            “For forever,” Nezumi said carefully. He thought Shion had already asked. He thought he’d already agreed. He didn’t plan for anything less. He didn’t want anything less. He didn’t think he could do anything less. The idea that they could fall out of love was almost as terrifying as knowing that they had fallen into it. Nezumi tried not to think of it. Disregarded it as an option. It never had been for him.

            He looked at Shion and wondered what it might feel like if this man didn’t love him anymore. He wondered how likely it was. How many times Shion had fallen in love, offered his easy smiles, told people with nowhere to put their plates of French toast in his plant-cluttered kitchen that he liked them, as if a confession like that was simple, as if he’d said it a million times and could a million more.

            Nezumi stepped back from Shion, not realizing it. He felt Shion’s arms loosen from around him, release him.

            “Nezumi,” Shion said, and he didn’t say anything else.

            Nezumi looked away from him. Stared at the wall beside him where he’d been leaning as he watched Shion change his clothing. He didn’t know why he hadn’t considered any of this before, and he didn’t know why he was even considering it now.

            Nezumi didn’t care who Shion had loved before himself, whatever life he’d lived. He only cared that there was the possibility of people afterward, people who could come next, people who could turn Nezumi into the life Shion had lived before, and suddenly Nezumi didn’t know why he was here, why he’d flown to Marseille, why he’d thought anyone could be the exception when everyone he’d loved had left.

            There were Shion’s fingers on Nezumi’s face, the side of his jaw, turning his head gently, and Nezumi stared at Shion and tried to stop speculating on a future in the absence of this man.

            “You have to tell me what you’re thinking. You can’t be closed off from me. Talk to me,” Shion said, and his voice was stern, harder than Nezumi had expected.

            Nezumi shook his head. “It’s nothing.”

            “You can’t do that.”

            “Do what?”

            “Lie to me.”

            “Everyone lies,” Nezumi replied, keeping his voice light.

            Shion narrowed his eyes, only enough to barely notice. He tucked Nezumi’s bangs behind his ear before dropping his hand.

            “Fine. Promise me forever,” Shion said.

            Nezumi blinked.

            “You said you would. You just said you would. Were you lying then?”

            “No.”

            “Then do it,” Shion said, and he sounded almost angry.

            “Is there a reason you’re suddenly upset?”

            Shion threw up his hands. “Because! You’re so difficult, Nezumi, it’s infuriating! I don’t know what you’re thinking, I can’t read your mind, you have to let me in. I can see on your face that something’s wrong, that something is scaring you, but I need you to tell me. Is it this? Us? A minute ago, you were so certain of us, and now, like that, like nothing, you’re changing your mind, and I can’t do that with you again!”

            “I’m not changing my mind,” Nezumi said, almost warily, wanting Shion to calm down.

            “Then why would you tell me that everyone lies? I don’t understand you, I don’t know what you’re trying to say, I don’t know what you’re trying to do to me, I don’t know what it means that you’re here except that I’m so happy you are, but I don’t know if you are, I don’t know what you want.”

            Nezumi stepped forward, closed the gap that had grown between them, caught Shion’s hand in his and weaved his fingers through Shion’s. “I want you. I know I don’t have to say that.”

            Shion shook his head. “Right now, yes, but – ”

            “When you asked me what I was thinking, I was thinking that – ” Nezumi cut himself off. Exhaled deeply. Looked away from Shion, searched the small dressing room without knowing what he was searching for.

            Shion squeezed his hand.

            “It’s not just me,” Nezumi finally said, quietly. His bangs had fallen out from where Shion had tucked them behind his ear. “It’s not just me that can leave.”

            Nezumi was looking at their hands now. Shion had big palms, but his fingers were shorter than Nezumi’s. His nails always got too long because he put off cutting them, and they’d get to the point where it would hurt when he dug them into Nezumi’s skin when they fucked, so Nezumi would end up cutting them himself at an early hour of the morning.

            This couldn’t be the past. It couldn’t be a life he no longer lived. Nezumi couldn’t stand the thought of someone else cutting Shion’s fingernails, chastising Shion for the state of his cuticles while Shion complained and asked if Nezumi was done yet, if they could get back to fucking, he was tired and had to wake up early to train with Karan.

            “Nezumi, look at me,” Shion said, so Nezumi did, thought about the first time he’d seen this man in a video of the previous year’s Grand Prix Final, skating and then stopping and smiling in a breathless way that had Nezumi pausing the video every time, inspecting that smile every time, trying to figure out every time what it could be that could make a man so happy, if it ever could be him.

            Shion had freed his hand from Nezumi’s. Grabbed onto the front of Nezumi’s jacket, pulled Nezumi closer to him.

            “I would marry you right now. I never thought about marriage much before, and I don’t know if it even means anything to you, if it’s something you’d even want, but I’d do it right now because it’s a societally recognized contract that I will stay with you, and maybe it’s something you could recognize too. If you need a contract to believe me, then fine, let’s get married. I’d sign anything. I’d say anything. I’d promise you anything. I know you’ve been alone for a long time, and I will never, never let you feel alone again. But if you don’t trust me, Nezumi, I can’t do anything about the thoughts inside your head. There’s nothing I can give you that I haven’t, but if you can think of something, tell me, and it’s yours.”

            Nezumi wrapped his hand around Shion’s that gripped his jacket, pulled the figure skater’s hand free.       

            “You can’t keep talking yourself out of this,” Shion said. “Nezumi, I’m so happy to be with you, but it’s not right that you can’t trust me when I say these things to you.”

            “You don’t trust me either,” Nezumi accused, but his voice came out smaller than he’d intended.

            “Since I’ve known you, you’ve been assuring me that you don’t want a permanent relationship. Since I’ve known you, you’ve been pulling away. I’m allowed to not trust you. You’re not allowed that,” Shion argued.

            Nezumi smiled wanly. “That’s not fair.”

            “No, it hasn’t been fair for me, I agree,” Shion said, his voice hard.  

            Nezumi searched Shion’s face. “You realize you just proposed to me.”

            “If that’s how you want to look at it, I’m fine with that.”

            “So if I said yes, you’d marry me right now.”

            “Yes,” Shion said, not hesitating, and Nezumi had to laugh. “I’m not kidding.”

            “I can see that.”

            “Would it make you feel better?” Shion asked.

            “What? To marry you? Shion, please think before you talk.”

            “I did think,” Shion snapped. “Would it?”

            “I’m not marrying you right now. The press would definitely go nuts for that though.”

            “Then what would make you feel better? What do you want me to do?” Shion demanded.

            He looked too serious, Nezumi thought. “Nothing at all, listening to you ramble on has done its trick, I feel very secure now. You’ll never leave me. If you do, I have a right to come after you.”

            Shion frowned. “Please don’t be sarcastic.”

            “I’m not. I will come after you, and I will find you. Your hair makes you a luminescent target, not to mention your general fame,” Nezumi said, very seriously, and Shion examined him for a moment, then seemed to relax.

            “Your sarcasm makes me think you’re feeling better.”

            “I’m not being sarcastic.”

            “I’m glad you feel better now, but if you ever have any doubts, you come to me and talk to me. Okay? Deal? You have to agree to talk to me, Nezumi, that’s the only way I can do this.”

            Nezumi pushed his bangs from his forehead. “Okay, okay,” he said, needing Shion to shut up. He felt a little pathetic, after the entire conversation. Tired, too, and he knew that was the jet-lag.

            “Don’t get frustrated. If anyone has a right to be frustrated, it’s me,” Shion warned.

            Nezumi smiled lazily. “I’m not frustrated.”

            Shion seemed to be searching him for signs of frustration, his eyes roaming quickly around Nezumi’s face, but then he was asking, “Are you tired?”

            “I’m fine.”

            “You look tired.”

            “Okay, I’m a little tired,” Nezumi conceded, figuring Shion would never let him win an argument.

            Shion softened visibly, returning to Nezumi, tucking his hand in Nezumi’s jacket pocket, an odd gesture Nezumi blinked at before looking back at Shion.

            “It’s a long flight here from Tokyo. I usually sleep for a good number of hours when I land, but I guess you didn’t have time to do that. What hotel are you staying at?”

            “Uh, something French,” Nezumi hedged.

            Shion smiled. “You’ll be staying with me anyway, right? I suppose we still have to cancel your reservation and pick up your luggage.”

            “I don’t have luggage.”

            “You’re here for several days, how could you not bring luggage?”

            “It was a last-minute decision, I didn’t have time to pack luggage,” Nezumi said, hearing that he sounded defensive, noticing that Shion’s smile widened slightly.

            “Okay, I’ll pull up a list of hotels near here, see if you recognize the name,” Shion said, pulling out his phone, typing something onto it.

            “Don’t you have stuff that you have to do?”

            “Like what?” Shion asked, not looking up from his phone.

            “I don’t know. Competition stuff. More interviews, or practice your free skate, or some kind of skater’s panel,” Nezumi suggested, uncertain.

            “I don’t have to do any more interviews, I can practice my free skate all day tomorrow, and there’s no skater’s panels tonight,” Shion said, looking up and offering Nezumi his phone. “Any of these?”

            Nezumi scrolled through the hotels listed, found one that seemed vaguely familiar, and watched Shion call the hotel and speak with someone in clumsy French that he quickly changed to a more precise English – both languages Nezumi had very little familiarity with – before he hung up.

            “Okay, I cancelled your room. Shall we go? Are you hungry? They have some food here, but the press will be swarming the food tables. We can go somewhere else or order room service at the hotel.”

            “Are you sure you don’t have any other responsibilities here?” Nezumi asked, while Shion grabbed Nezumi’s hand and started pulling him, stopping to pick up the bouquet of roses he’d left on a bench while he changed.

            “Very sure. Maybe we should just go to the hotel and I’ll order room service while you shower. Your hair looks a little matted at the back.”

            “What are you talking about?” Nezumi demanded, lifting the hand Shion wasn’t holding and touching the back of his head, finding that his hair did feel completely in knots.

            “The whole fifteen-hour-flight-haven’t-slept look is not great on you, you seem a little disheveled. A shower would do you good,” Shion continued, and they were out of the dressing room by then.

            Nezumi chose not to reply, wishing he’d looked in a mirror and unable to remember the last time he did so. He followed Shion blindly as Shion led him down hallways, then to an elevator, choosing the ground floor and pulling Nezumi out a different lobby than that which he’d entered.

            They were soon outside, the afternoon hanging low in the dark sky, the air cool, though not much more so than the rink itself. Shion hailed a taxi, spoke words in French to the driver that Nezumi realized only five minutes into the ride were probably just the name of the hotel.

            “What about your mom? And Safu?”

            “What about them?”

            “Shouldn’t you have told them you left?”

            “I texted them before I looked up your hotel,” Shion said, pointing out the window. “That’s the _Basilique Notre-Dame de la Garde_. It’s a big tourist attraction here, I visited it my first day with Graeme and Jin. It’s really beautiful inside, we can go tomorrow if you want. My free skate isn’t until the day after.”

            “Can you really be sight-seeing right now?”

            “Of course,” Shion replied.

            “If you already saw that church thing why would you want to see it again?” Nezumi countered, looking away from the window to scrutinize Shion, who looked at him with his head a little tilted, as if Nezumi’s question had confused him.

            “To see it with you,” Shion said.

            Nezumi turned away from him. Stared back out the window and pretended anything out there could be more worth looking at than the man beside him.

*

Nezumi went straight to shower, and Shion put the roses Nezumi’d brought him in a water pitcher he found in the hotel fridge before ordering room service, instructing the concierge that the food could be brought straight into the room if the door wasn’t answered.

            He hung up the phone then pushed open the bathroom door that Nezumi hadn’t entirely closed, the sticky warmth of the small room immediately coating his skin. Shion listened to the shower spray as he undressed, then reached out, opened the shower curtain, found Nezumi standing with his head tilted up to the spray until he turned, blinking as water dripped down from his eyelashes.

            “Hey,” he said, and Shion stepped into the tub, Nezumi moving aside to allow him.

            “Hi,” Shion said, feeling the spray hit the back of his head. It was incredibly warm.

            Nezumi’s hair was longer than Shion had ever seen it. Most of it had been pushed back over his shoulders, but a small cluster of strands stuck to his right cheek, fell down to his shoulder, snaked past his collarbone, reached down his chest.

            “Did you wash your hair yet?” Shion asked, while Nezumi looked at him.

            “No,” Nezumi said softly, and Shion realized he’d spoken quietly as well, didn’t know why but felt as though they had to keep their voices muted.

            “Can I do it?”

            Nezumi didn’t answer. Turned around and reached out for the tiny complimentary shampoo bottle while Shion watched the way the water flickered over the edges of his burn scar. Nezumi offered the shampoo to Shion without facing him, and Shion took it, opened it, shifted over and pulled Nezumi back into the spray of the shower before he squeezed shampoo onto the palm of his hand.

            He placed the bottle on the ledge of the shower, then reached up, gathered all of Nezumi’s hair in his hands, lathered the shampoo into it, feeling the knots in the man’s hair.

            “How do you get out the knots?” Shion asked, trying to get shampoo on every bit of Nezumi’s hair, watching the suds brew into the ink of it.

            “I’ll show you. Finish the shampoo first.”

            Nezumi was taller than him. Shion had to reach up to get the top of his head, blindly feeling at Nezumi’s forehead, wanting to make sure he got all of Nezumi’s bangs.

            “Ah,” Nezumi said quietly, while Shion attempted to massage his head.

            “What?”

            “Shampoo in my eyes.”

            “Sorry.”

            “It’s okay.”

            Nezumi had a lot of hair. Shion had felt it woven through his fingers, had felt it stuck to his face and neck as he slept, but to feel it wet was different. There was a weight to it. It was tangled and everywhere, and Shion thought of a mermaid.

            Hair caught on his fingers and stayed when Shion pulled his hands away. He looked at the long black strands before putting his hands under the spray and letting them be washed from his fingers, thinking of Nezumi’s hair clogging the drain in his own apartment, how Shion would remind the man to clean it up after his showers at least weekly.

            Nezumi was rinsing his hair out, his fingers running halfway through it, then getting stopped at the tangles. He bent down again, returned with the conditioner.

            “Use a lot,” he told Shion, who nodded, took it, squeezed nearly the entire bottle onto his palm.

            Nezumi moved out of the spray, faced Shion, pulled his hair over his shoulder.

            “Make sure you get all of it,” he said gently, so Shion stepped forward, was in the spray himself now, started at the top of Nezumi’s head and worked down, and then Nezumi’s fingers were alongside his. “Pull your fingers slowly through, like this. When you meet a knot, work it out slowly, and keep trying to pull your fingers through the tangles.”

            “I don’t want to pull out your hair.”

            “It’s fine,” Nezumi said, so Shion started combing his fingers through the curtain of Nezumi’s hair, slick and silky now that it was coated with conditioner.

            At each tangle, he tried to pull his fingers through gently, then would give up, start over from the crown of Nezumi’s head, pull his fingers back down, meet the same tangle, try to pull through it gently.

            Nezumi allowed his attempts for several minutes, and then his own fingers were back, and he was pulling apart sections of his hair before he was combing through it himself, his own fingers quicker, sometimes grabbing fistfuls of his hair and pulling the clumps of the strands apart, ripping the tangles in half.

            In this time, Shion quickly washed his own hair, and soon enough, Shion could run his fingers through Nezumi’s hair without objection. Nezumi stepped back under the spray and allowed Shion to wash out the conditioner. Shion moved his fingers slowly, not wanting to miss an inch.

            Nezumi offered the bar of soap next, and they washed each other’s bodies. Shion had started from Nezumi’s feet and worked up, while Nezumi had started with Shion’s shoulders. By the time Shion had risen, was rubbing sudsy circles on the tops of Nezumi’s shoulders, Nezumi was crouched down in front of him. After Nezumi soaped his legs, Shion felt Nezumi’s hands between his thighs, thumbs moving in slow patterns upward.

            Nezumi’s lips were pressed to the crease of Shion’s pelvis. Shion looked down at him, strung his fingers through Nezumi’s hair.

            “Hey, come back,” Shion said softly, while Nezumi continued to kiss his skin.        

            “I want to.” His voice was muffled by the skin of Shion’s upper thigh.

            “Not now,” Shion said, and Nezumi’s lips left his skin, and then Nezumi was standing again.

            “You don’t want to,” he said, eyes searching Shion’s face, and Shion touched where the shower spray made rivers over Nezumi’s chest.

            “Not right now.”

            “You don’t have to do anything. I want to take care of you,” Nezumi said, leaning forward, his lips on Shion’s jawline, but Shion pushed him gently away.

            “We’re both tired. I want us to have more energy when we have sex. If we start, I’m not going to want to stop, and I’ll need you to have more stamina then you do right now.”

            Nezumi squinted. Water trickled over his lips. “I have stamina.”

            “You must be jet-lagged. You look so tired.”

            “I’ll drink coffee between rounds.”

            Shion smiled, touched a drop of water that had caught in Nezumi’s eyelash to free it. “I want you to sleep now. I want us both to sleep. We have so much time.”

            Nezumi looked at Shion with heavy eyes. There were dark rings underneath them. Shion wanted only to take care of him.

            Nezumi nodded, and they let the shower spray steal the suds off their skin before turning it off, lukewarm by the end.

            Shion had left the bathroom door open, so the bathroom was not completely humid, but the mirrors were still fogged. They pressed the hotel towels to each other, and Nezumi wrapped one in his hair. Shion found bathrobes, put one on while he searched his suitcase for a clean t-shirt and boxers for himself, and clothes for Nezumi to wear as well.

            He offered Nezumi a pair of boxers, which Nezumi pulled on, refusing the t-shirt and saying he didn’t need one to sleep. He pulled the towel from his hair, and Shion watched him string his fingers through it, sitting on the side of the bed and combing slowly.

            Shion hung up their towels. The room service cart had been pushed to the other side of the bed than where Nezumi sat, so Shion retrieved it, brought it to Nezumi’s side before sitting beside him.

            “I’m okay,” Nezumi said.

            “You should try to eat something. Have you eaten all day?”  

            Nezumi shook his head, and Shion uncovered the dishes. He’d ordered simple food – a salad, sandwiches, soup. They ate mostly without speaking, and afterward, Shion took the empty trays and cart outside the room before returning to find Nezumi braiding his hair.

            It was still wet, but Shion liked when Nezumi braided his wet hair. Once he let it out, it would be wavy, curl over his shoulders and trickle lightly down his back, and Shion would pull the ends gently just to see them spring back up.

            They brushed their teeth, and Nezumi peed first. By the time Shion left the bathroom, Nezumi was already in bed under the blankets. Shion slipped in beside him, inched closer and closer, pressed himself to Nezumi’s naked chest, the heat of his skin radiating.

            Nezumi’s arms came around him, fell over his body loosely. Shion slipped his knee between both of Nezumi’s. Tucked his forehead against Nezumi’s collarbone. Breathed him in, and he smelled of hotel soap, of the bottle of complimentary conditioner.

            Shion felt Nezumi’s lips against the top of his hair, felt the breath of his words when Nezumi spoke a moment later.

            “Do you need to set an alarm?”

            “No. Are you okay to wake up whenever?”

            “Sure,” Nezumi said.

            Shion closed his eyes. He relaxed against Nezumi, who, after a minute passed, pulled him closer, and Shion allowed it, let his body go limp, let Nezumi arrange him however he wanted, pull him wherever he needed.

            Nezumi was still again, and there was only the sounds of their breathing. Shion tried to listen beneath them for the thump of Nezumi’s heartbeat. He wanted to know if it was racing or if it was like Shion’s own – steadier than it had ever been.

*


	13. Chapter 13

When Nezumi woke, Shion was gone.

            Nezumi opened his eyes slowly. Blinked, the sun sharp, and turned to the source of it, saw that the blinds had been opened and sunlight broke into the room, casting over most of Nezumi, who rolled onto his stomach, pressed his face into his pillow.

            Inside the shelter of his pillow, he put together where he was. Shion’s hotel room in Marseille. He turned his face free from the pillow, saw that there was nothing on the other side of the bed but sunlight. He reached out, his fingers touching the bare sheets. They were warm, but that might only have been the sun.

            Nezumi lifted his head from the pillow, only enough inches to allow him a glimpse of the clock on the nightstand. A quarter to eleven. He decided to go back to sleep until Shion came back from wherever he was. He sat up further to pull the blanket from where it’d been kicked down in their sleep, both men hot from the body of the other, when he saw the note on Shion’s pillow, and reached for that instead.

_Morning! (if it is still morning when you wake)_

_Don’t eat breakfast, I have so many things I want to try with you, and I especially want to see the first time you have escargots. And Graeme was telling me there’s this must-have Marseille dish called bouillabaisse (I don’t know the Japanese characters for that, but are you impressed that I memorized the spelling?), so we have to get that too._

_I’m at the GPF practice rink, I wrote the address on the back. I’m waiting to see the city with you, come find me._

            _-S_

            Nezumi turned the note around. Skimmed the address, then put the note back on Shion’s pillow and pushed himself up, stumbling off the bed and into the bathroom. He peed, brushed his teeth, and washed his face, then pulled his hair from the braid he’d slept in, clumps of it still damp.

            He left it loose, knowing Shion liked when it had small waves that would slowly straighten back out throughout the course of the day.

            He left the bathroom, pulled on his jeans, one of Shion’s t-shirts, and his shoes, and left the hotel room, pocketing a key card lying on the nightstand and Shion’s note on his way out.

            Nezumi had expected to need some sort of pass to get into the practice rink, but the security seemed to know who he was and let him in. The rink was cold, and Nezumi crossed his arms over his chest, pulling his shoulders forward and scanning the ice.

            He found Shion immediately, wearing jeans and a sweater and skating slowly. Not his free skate program, just a few positions and spins. Nezumi walked to the edge of the rink. A few other skaters were there, and one – a tall blond whom Nezumi recognized immediately from his short program the day before – caught Nezumi’s eye and waved before skating to Shion, touching his arm, and pointing to Nezumi.

            Shion turned. Smiled immediately, but Nezumi had known he would. Shion skated not to him, but the door of the rink, and from there Nezumi could see him changing out of his skates before coming to Nezumi’s side.

            “Hi,” Shion said, reaching out, catching a clump of Nezumi’s hair, tugging on it lightly.      

            “Hey. You need to practice more?”

            “No. You didn’t eat, did you?”

            “No.”

            “Let me put my skates in my locker, and we’ll go. I have so much I want to show you.”

            “If you need to practice, you should practice,” Nezumi said, glancing back at the rink, aware a few of the other skaters were watching them.

            Shion’s hand was on his arm, pulling him. “I don’t need to practice. Let’s go eat some snails. And I was doing research, there’s this huge dance company rooted here, the Ballet National de Marseille, have you heard of it? They combine modern dance with traditional ballet, from what I understood. We’ll have to stop by and see it. Do you have any background in modern dance?”

            Nezumi allowed Shion to pull him to his locker, watched Shion put his skates away, let the man lead him back out the rink and into the cool midday, the sun sharp and high and making Shion squint at Nezumi when he turned to look at him, finally done his rambling.

            “What’s wrong?” Nezumi asked, because Shion was oddly silent, had stopped walking entirely outside the entrance of the rink.

            “Nothing. I just remembered that you’re here,” Shion said, walking again like he hadn’t said anything strange.

            Nezumi stared after him for a moment, then followed, catching up, feeling Shion’s fingers touch his before they linked through, and Nezumi did not pull away.

            He wouldn’t pull away from this man again.

*

The moon was full when Shion brought Nezumi back to the practice rink, ordering him to stand outside the edge of the rink before he retrieved his skates from his locker, changed into them, and got onto the rink itself.

            He skated a few laps, then turned to Nezumi, to whom Shion had given his phone.

            “I’m ready,” Shion said, and Nezumi nodded.

            A few seconds later, Shion heard his music play and began his free skate. The rest of the rink was empty – it had to be near midnight by then, and professional skaters knew to get a good night’s sleep before they had to skate their final program for the Grand Prix Final.

            Shion landed a triple flip. Felt the cool of the rink fall away from his skin, felt his skin grow warmer, felt his chest heat up, felt his heart pump hard and loud and steady him over the ice. He loved to skate, had always loved to skate, and felt it now overwhelming him, how right he felt on ice, how full.

            He didn’t have to think about how he would end his program. He jumped off the ice, rotated four times in a perfect quad axel, landed cleanly, and finished the routine a few seconds later. He was breathing hard, but not out of breath. He felt alive, incredible, and turned to Nezumi.

            “I wanted to do it for you. Like that, with the quad axel. I wanted you to see it done right,” Shion explained, giving himself a moment, then skating towards Nezumi, bumping into the edge of the rink, curling his hands over top of it and wishing it were not there so he could be closer to Nezumi, so he could be right up against him.

            Nezumi was looking at him carefully. “You’re amazing.”

            Shion bit the inside of his cheek. Released it. “Thank you.” Shion thought about kissing him. Remembered that he’d wanted to ask Nezumi something first, couldn’t do that if he was kissing him, couldn’t be sure he’d be able to stop kissing Nezumi once he started.

            Nezumi’s hand was over Shion’s. Rising upward, was at his wrist when Shion spoke.

            “What do you think I should do?” Shion asked, and Nezumi’s hand froze.

            Nezumi took a moment to answer. “Tomorrow.”

            “Yeah.”

            “You’re asking me if you should do the quad to end your program.”

            “I still haven’t decided,” Shion confessed.

            “I can’t tell you that. You have to make that decision on your own.”

            “But you must have an opinion,” Shion insisted, and Nezumi’s lips lifted lightly, a quick smirk.

            “Maybe.”

            “You won’t tell me?”

            “I don’t want to influence your choice. You know what you’re capable of. You know what’s best for you.”

            Shion leaned forward. “I know I can do it. I just did it for you, didn’t I? And I feel fine. It’s been months since the Rostelecom Cup, I can handle it now, I’ve been practicing it and working on my stamina – ”

            “Doing it in an empty rink is different than at the Final, in front of everyone, knowing it really counts.”  
            “It really counted to do it here, for you. Yesterday, I skated my short program for you, and I didn’t even know you were there. Now, I’ll know. It will be just like this,” Shion insisted, but Nezumi shook his head, his hand gone from Shion’s wrist, stepping back from the edge of the rink.

            “Look, it’s up to you, all right? You don’t need my permission.”

            “But you don’t want me to do it,” Shion pressed, and Nezumi looked at him.

            He reached up, his fingers pushing up his bangs, falling limply back at his side. “You were in the hospital, Shion.” Nezumi’s voice was at the edge of helpless, and Shion felt hot, wanted to reassure Nezumi even though it’d been months before.

            “I was just dehydrated and tired, I hadn’t been sleeping well for weeks, but last night beside you I slept better than I have in months. And I’ve been training! I wasn’t ready before, I know that, but I’m ready now – ”

            “Why are you asking me if you know how I feel?” Nezumi demanded. He sounded frustrated, but not angry.

            “I don’t want you to be worried.”

            “You shouldn’t be thinking about me at all. This is your career, it’s your responsibility to know what jumps should be in your – ”

            “I can’t do it if I don’t think you believe in me!” Shion said, too loudly, hearing the volume of his voice ring through the rink and wanting to take it back.

            Nezumi tilted his head. The curls in his hair were mostly gone by now, had straightened back into a sheen of city night sky, starless. Shion wanted to take Nezumi deep into rural Japan. Wanted to find a sky so filled with stars they had to squint to see the black of it beneath them. He wanted to point at the stars and tell Nezumi about the constellations he’d read about, the stories for those constellations, stories people had told since the beginning of time when the bright lights in the sky were a mystery rather than known spheres of plasma held together by the push and pull of gravity.

            Shion wanted to pretend he and Nezumi were the first to ever see the stars. He wanted to name them all over again, contort them into new constellations, assign them their own stories. He wanted to name one after Nezumi, and name one after himself, and put them in the same constellation, just two stars in a straight line, but he would look at this line and think of the straight edge of a blade beneath an ice skate. The edge where skate balanced on ice. The edge on which he stood now, still on the ice, all of his weight depending on it. All of his being balanced on something that should have been precarious and unsteady, but there had never been anywhere Shion felt more steady and safe than on the ice. There had never been anywhere Shion had known he would not fall than balanced on the blades of his ice skates.

            “Shion,” Nezumi was saying, and Shion looked at him, wanted to ask him to fly to Japan with him right then, to take a train somewhere far outside any city, to find their constellation and name it quick, before either of their stars burned out.

            “I didn’t mean to yell,” Shion said softly.

            “I never thought I could believe in anything the way I believe in you,” Nezumi said, his hand cupping Shion’s neck, and Shion looked up at him. “I haven’t in a very long time.”

            Shion nodded. Nezumi leaned closer, kissed him in a soft, shallow way, his lips not entirely closed but hardly parted. He lingered longer than Shion expected, and was gone just as Shion was about to wrap his hands in Nezumi’s hair and pull the man closer.

            “We should go back to the hotel,” Nezumi said. “You need to rest, get a good night’s sleep.”

            Shion didn’t argue. He got off the rink and changed out of his skates, and outside, Shion called a taxi.

            In the taxi, Shion turned to Nezumi, who had the window open, his hair drifting back from his face, tangling behind him.

            “Do you like Marseille?” Shion asked, and when Nezumi looked at him, his hair flew over his face, slats of pale skin hardly visible between the mesh of black until Nezumi raised a hand, pulled his hair from his face, held it by his neck but for his bangs that still flipped over his eyes and off again.

            “I love it,” Nezumi said, very seriously, and Shion couldn’t stop his smile.

            “How much?” he asked.

            Nezumi squinted. His hair stopped being tossed by the wind, as the taxi was stopping. They’d gotten to the hotel, but before Shion could unbuckle his seatbelt, Nezumi’s hand was over the buckle, and Shion was forced to look up at him again.

            Nezumi looked windswept and beautiful. His eyes were almost black in the dark of the cab.

            “More than I can stand,” Nezumi said quietly, his lips inches from Shion, and it took Shion a moment to remember what he’d asked.

            Shion looked from Nezumi’s eyes to his lips. They were supposed to be getting out of the taxi. There wasn’t time to kiss this man, not yet, not here.

            There was a click, and Shion felt his seatbelt loosen, realized Nezumi had unbuckled it. The man was moving away from him, had his door open, was getting out of the car, and Shion caught his breath before he followed.

            They paid the driver and walked in silence to the hotel, then up to Shion’s hotel room. The moment they were inside, Shion clicking the door closed, Nezumi caught Shion by the wrist, twisted him gently until his back was to the door he’d just closed, and Nezumi was right in front of him, so close to him their chests nearly touched. Nezumi’s leg was between both of Shion’s.

            “Hey,” Nezumi said.

            “Hi.”

            “I’m just warning you. We’re not having sex tonight.”

            Shion had been trying not to grind himself down on Nezumi’s knee. Attempted to focus. “What? Why not?”

            They hadn’t had sex in months. Shion couldn’t fathom how he had waited so long.

            “It’s already late, we should have come home earlier. You need to rest tonight.”

            “I can sacrifice an hour. My skate isn’t until after noon, we don’t have to wake up early.”

            “I’ll need more than an hour,” Nezumi said, and Shion stared at him.

            “Is this some sort of payback? I said no to sex last night, and now it’s your turn?”

            “Unlike you, clearly, my mind doesn’t work in such a petty way. I plan on exhausting you. I plan on taking up several hours of your time.”

            “The hours are yours,” Shion said, reaching out, unzipping Nezumi’s jacket before he slipped his hands up Nezumi’s t-shirt, which he realized after a moment was his own t-shirt.

            Nezumi shook his head, stepped back from Shion until Shion’s hands slipped out from Nezumi’s shirt. “You don’t have enough hours to give me tonight.”

            “Don’t be so greedy, we have so much time, you don’t have to try to fit everything in tonight,” Shion muttered, disgruntled, following Nezumi, who kept walking away from him.

            “How about we make a deal?” Nezumi proposed, when he’d walked so far backwards that they were standing in front of the bathroom now.

            “I don’t want a deal. I want to fuck you tonight.”

            “We wait until after your free skate, and then I’ll grant any wish you have.”

            Shion frowned, stopped walking forward. They were inside the bathroom now – Nezumi beside the sink, Shion a step in front of him. “You’ve already done everything I wanted,” he said.

            Nezumi laughed. “Not just in the bedroom, idiot. Anything at all.”

            “Anything at all.”

            “That’s what I said.”

            “You realize that gives me a lot of power,” Shion said.

            “I do realize that.”

            “All so that we don’t have sex tonight. If you don’t want to have sex, just tell me.”

            “I do want to have sex. I also happen to know it’s been a while since we’ve had sex. I don’t think time management will be our strong point once we get started, and I want you to have a good night’s sleep tonight.”

            Shion had his hands on his hips, understanding having arrived abruptly. “Because you’re worried I’ll do the quad axel tomorrow, and if I don’t get sleep, I’ll end up in the hospital again, and you’ll be responsible because you let me fuck you for too long.”

            Nezumi smiled. “Now you’re just speculating.”

            “But that is what you’re thinking, right? That’s so ridiculous, Nezumi, I already told you, in Moscow there were a lot of circumstances that don’t apply at all to today. And going to the hospital was not a big deal, they were just being overly-cautious, not that I’m saying I will end up there again, I’m only reiterating that – ”

            “I’m offering to grant you any wish. Like a genie. I don’t know why you’re protesting so much.”

            “Genies grant three wishes,” Shion said shortly, while Nezumi turned to the side, looked at himself in the mirror above the sink.

            “Look who’s being greedy now.”

            Shion examined Nezumi’s profile. “You really mean anything?”

            Nezumi glanced at him without turning, from the sides of his eyes. “I’d rather not slather your name on my chest in red paint and streak across the ice with an aster between my teeth before your free skate tomorrow, but I suppose if you asked for it, this verbal contract is binding.”

            Shion felt himself relax, smiled lightly. “You shouldn’t have planted that idea in my head. How long do I get to make my request?”

            “Let’s say a week,” Nezumi offered.

            “You’re serious.”

            “Increasingly regretting it, but yes.”

            “All so I don’t try to seduce you tonight.”

            “I’m very susceptible to your sexual wiles,” Nezumi confirmed, his smirk so familiar it made Shion’s knees weak.

            “Nothing is going to happen to me tomorrow. Nezumi, I promise, no matter what I end up doing in my free skate, I’ll be fine. I’m not going to pass out. And if I do, it will not by any means by your fault or have to do with how I sleep tonight. I really don’t want you to be worrying about this.”

            “Do we have an agreement?” Nezumi asked, not seeming to have listened to Shion, who frowned at him, then sighed, shook his head.

            “Okay, okay. I won’t even touch you tonight, and you’ll grant me a wish.”

            “Don’t be so dramatic, you can touch me. Just try not to fondle too much,” Nezumi said, reaching out for Shion’s toothbrush. He squeezed a drop of toothpaste on it before holding it out for Shion, who took it.

            They finished their nighttime routines, took quick showers, and were soon in bed, where Shion, true to his word, did not touch Nezumi.

            Nezumi, however, was quickly correcting this, turning so that his back was to Shion, then scooching back until Shion’s chest was against Nezumi’s shoulder blades. Nezumi reached back, grappled around before finding Shion’s wrist, pulled it to sling it over his own waist.

            “You’re being greedy now,” Shion whispered into Nezumi’s neck, giving in and slipping closer to the man, pressing his body as close to Nezumi’s as he could. He breathed in the shampoo-scent of Nezumi’s hair, felt the wet locks cool the tip of his nose and forehead.

            “I am greedy,” Nezumi said, while Shion wrapped his own arm more tightly around Nezumi’s waist.

            There was a buzzing sound and a small blip of noise, and Nezumi groaned.

            “Was that your phone?” Shion asked.

            “I forgot to put it on silent. It’s on the nightstand closer to you, can you reach it?”

            “Hold on,” Shion said, unraveling himself from Nezumi, reaching back to grab Nezumi’s phone, the notification still lighting the screen – a preset reminder.

            _water the ugly cactus_

            Shion read it once, then again. He touched the words. The background of Nezumi’s phone behind it was one of those provided by the cell company – a snowy mountaintop and a purple sky full of stars.

            “Hey, come back,” Nezumi said softly, already sounding half-asleep.

            Shion silenced Nezumi’s phone, replaced it on the nightstand, then returned to cup Nezumi’s body with his own, curling himself around the man’s tall frame, intertwining his legs with Nezumi’s longer ones, bent at the knees.

            He pressed his lips to the exposed skin of Nezumi’s neck, a few strands of Nezumi’s hair caught between the kiss.

            “Good night, Nezumi,” Shion said.

            Nezumi murmured something soft and unintelligible in response, leaving Shion to imagine what Nezumi might have been meaning to say.

            Shion let himself imagine everything.

*

Nezumi stood beside Karan and Safu at the edge of the rink, their access passes slung on lanyards over their necks. Nezumi had been instructed in a rather stern tone earlier that day by a security personnel that he was not to open the door of the rink the way he had after Shion’s short program, as it was against policy for any members of friends and family to open the rink gate. Safu, who’d been snickering beside Nezumi while he was lectured, seemed to find this amusing, and kept reminding Nezumi that passionate post-skate embraces were not to be tolerated.

            Nezumi didn’t realize he was drumming his fingers on the wall of the rink until Karan cupped her hand over his. She didn’t say anything, and Nezumi was relieved that she left her hand on his.

            “Did he tell you what jump he’d end on?” Safu asked, from Nezumi’s other side.

            “No.”

            “You didn’t ask?”

            “I don’t think he’s made his mind up yet.”

            In booming voices that echoed around the rink, the announcers were speculating on the same thing – How would Shion end his ever-changing free skate this time?

            _I think we’re all torn between having our fingers crossed for that quad axel and worrying that we’ll see the jump again, but alongside it, a repeat of the Rostelecom Cup’s terrible fainting scare. Either way, this audience knows that whatever Shion will skate for us will be something incredible. And there he is, skating onto the rink, Japan’s beloved five-time gold medalist and three-time silver medalist, Shion! He has stopped in the center, has a few moments to get into position, seems to be looking around at the crowd – ah, yes, there is the ballet dancer Nezumi here to watch Shion skate alongside Karan, his coach and mother. That was a touching embrace between the two young lovers that we saw at the end of Shion’s short program the other day, wasn’t it?_

            “Are you listening to this?” Safu asked.

            “Trying not to,” Nezumi muttered, not breaking his gaze from Shion, who smiled brightly at him.

            _And now it’s about the time we’ve all been waiting for, here at this gorgeous rink in Marseille. Once again, Shion’s free skate to selected music,_ The Rules for Lovers _, there comes his music now, and there goes Shion, his first jump planned for us, a quad Lutz._

            When Nezumi had woken that morning, Shion was already awake, sitting up in bed.

            Nezumi had sat up as well. Looked at Shion, who smiled at him in an early-morning way – lazily, slowly, beautifully.

            _Morning._

_How do you feel?_

_Nervous. Excited. Did my heartbeat wake you? I was worried it was too loud, but I didn’t want to get up yet. I wasn’t ready to leave your side. I love your features in the morning. I could spend my entire life just waking up to look at you, you know._

Karan’s hand squeezed over Nezumi’s.

            _And there’s that back-to-back double axel, triple toe, both jumps beautifully executed, the landing as if on water, how this man is so graceful will never stop to astound me. A step sequence next – in an interview for IFS Magazine, Shion revealed that his sequence was inspired by…_

            They’d ordered room service for breakfast, Nezumi insisting when Shion said he wasn’t hungry.

            _It’s always like this, pre-competition jitters. I love competing, and it’s nothing like stage fright. It’s just a normal reaction._

_You have to eat something._

_Nezumi, be honest with me. Are you worried? About my free skate ending with a quad axel?_

_I’ve seen you eat five pancakes in the span of ten minutes. At least have some fruit, aren’t you always telling me what goes in my body is important?_

_I told you that you have to be honest with me and tell me what you’re thinking. Remember? You agreed. What are you thinking?_

_I’m not worried, Shion._

_I won’t do it if you don’t want me to. The quad axel. If you’re worried, I won’t do it._

_I’m not worried._

Nezumi’s hands were sweaty. He gripped the edge of the rink’s wall harder. His nails dug into its sides. He hadn’t gotten a chance to cut them in a week, and they were longer than he’d ever let them grow.

            _He’s always been a natural at that camel spin position, look at those quick rotations, the man is a blur of perfect form and right angles. He’s straightening up out of it now, going into another back-to-back jump. Shion’s free skate has the second most jumps of all the programs by competitors who qualified for the Grand Prix this year, and the most of any program by the competitors that have made it to the Grand Prix Final today. It is truly an impressively choreographed program, done of course by his mother and coach and former figure skater, Karan, who somehow manages to include powerhouse jumps all the while keeping Shion looking extremely elegant and graceful over the ice._

Nezumi had watched Shion change into his costume at the dressing room of the rink. Had stood up to help Shion fix the skin-tight outfit over his body.

            _Do you get nervous before your productions?_

_At the New National Theatre?_

_Yeah._

_Not really. But they’re not as important as this._

_Of course they are._

_My productions aren’t a competition. They’re just shows._

_I don’t think of this as a competition. I’m just trying to keep the attention and admiration of my audience, just like you in your ballets._

  _I thought you said you were going to skate just for me._

_I am. Everything I do on the ice will be for you. Everything I do will be so that you can’t take your eyes off of me. Everything I do will be so that you can’t look away._

The entire rink was silent but for Shion’s music, the sounds of his skates on ice, and, of course, the announcer.

            _It’s winding down now. There’s his last spin, and all that’s left now is his final jump. I can hardly breathe, and I know the audience feels the same. I don’t want to blink. I feel safe to say that whatever happens next has the power to change men’s singles figure skating as we know it._

Before Nezumi and Shion parted ways right after the previous skater finished his free skate, Nezumi wrapped his hand around Shion’s wrist, waited for the man to look at him fully.

            _I don’t want to belittle how important this skate is for your career. But before you go out there, I need to make sure you know – this free skate, this whole Final, it doesn’t define how incredible you are. Whatever you do today, it will be one of a thousand moments._

_Not that many, I’m sure. Weren’t you the one just asking me if I was going to retire soon?_

_You’re not only a figure skater, Shion._

_Oh? What else am I?_

_Don’t be annoying, I’m trying to be sincere._

_A thousand moments isn’t enough to share with you._

_Two thousand._

_More than that._

_As many as you want. I’ll be amazed by you for as many moments as you want._

The music swelled. Shion’s eyes caught on Nezumi’s, held for a moment, and Nezumi felt as though he was being tugged forward, as though Shion pulling him out onto the ice with him, was skating in an arch around with him, Nezumi’s hand in Shion’s for support, guidance.

            As if Nezumi was learning, his first day on the ice, falling over and over again and shoving himself back up each time to be pulled by Shion for more steps, more steps, more steps, until there wasn’t a need to pull anymore, until their strides were equal and their hands were held for no other reason but that they didn’t want to let go.

            The music rose to the point where Shion’s last jump was planned, and he did so, lifting from the position to begin an axel, rotating one, two, three, four –

            Instead of landing, Shion fell. He did not fall in the way that he’d taught Nezumi, a way to protect his body, a way to allow a quick recovery.

            He fell with legs tangled from the middle of his fourth rotation. He fell hard on the ice, his arms not quite breaking his fall. He fell in a loud clatter of limbs and skates, so that it not only looked but sounded like it hurt. He fell in a way that had him skidding across the ice for a second or more. Nezumi’s breath left him quickly and abruptly. His hands slackened over the edge of the rink. He’d been close enough to see Shion’s wince as he’d fallen.

            “Oh, Shion,” Safu murmured quietly, a whisper Nezumi only heard as if from a far distance.

            Shion got up. His music was almost over. He skated to the center of the rink, his steps visibly stilted, and finished on the last note of his program in his ending position. He was standing very still and looking at Nezumi and only Nezumi, and Nezumi didn’t care about the rule of family and friends not being allowed to open the gate to the rink.     

            He wanted to open it. He wanted to run across the ice. He wanted to go to Shion, who looked so alone, standing in the center of the ice, his eyes wide and shining.

            When a tear dropped, Nezumi saw it from his proximity, but he knew everyone would be able to see it, he knew Shion’s face would be blown up on the big screen.

            There had been silence in the arena that Nezumi hadn’t noticed because he still heard – as if on a loop, as if on a video tape that he could rewind and play again – Shion’s hard fall onto the ice, the skid of his skates, the thud of his body. But when the silence was broken, it was impossible not to hear.

            The cheers for Shion were louder than they’d ever been. They were not the cheers of a Grand Prix Final crowd, they were the cheers of what had to be the entire world, somehow audible in that arena, somehow audible in that moment.

            Shion blinked. Reached up and wiped at his cheek. Broke his gaze from Nezumi’s and looked around him as if amazed to see that anyone was in the rink at all. He kept looking for a moment, and then, just like that, he was smiling, and somehow the applause doubled despite the fact that it had seemed to be at its largest possible volume a second before.

            Shion kept smiling. His easy smile, his genuine smile, his real smile, the kind that could break out into a laugh at any moment. He bowed, and the applause was more than deafening. He turned and bowed again, and Nezumi looked up at the big screen hanging from the ceiling of the rink so that he could still see Shion as he turned, saw that Shion was still smiling, that breathless smile.

            Shion had never fallen during competition. Nezumi had watched every single one of his videos. The man’s routines were always immaculate.

            Nezumi pushed at the gate, but he wasn’t near the door of it. It was on the other side of Safu, and he made to move around her, but her hand was on his wrist.

            “What are you doing?”

            “Let go of me.”

            “You can’t go out there after your warning, they’ll throw you out of the arena, and he needs you to be here right now,” Safu said sternly, and Nezumi freed his own wrist, but stopped trying to go around her. “He’s never fallen in competition before.”

            “I know,” Nezumi said, looking back at Shion.

            “It won’t matter,” Karan said, and Nezumi turned to her, had forgotten she was there, saw her watching her son intently. “The best skaters fall too. It won’t matter at all. This was his most amazing performance yet. It was beautiful. One fall won’t take that away.”

            Nezumi turned back to Shion. The applause had not dimmed. The announcer couldn’t be heard above it.

            Karan had been right. It had been Shion’s most beautiful performance yet. The fall hadn’t changed that, but Nezumi still worried for Shion, Shion who had never fallen before, Shion who pushed himself too hard, Shion who overthought everything.

            Shion stood still now, just breathing, looking around at the crowd, still smiling. He looked at Nezumi again, who leaned forward.

            “Come back,” Nezumi said, not bothering to raise his voice, knowing he wouldn’t be heard, needing Shion to only see his lips, to understand him.

            Shion skated forward. He skated with a limp, unevenly, and then he was at the edge of the rink in front of Nezumi, who still felt as if he could hear nothing at all.

            “Are you hurt?”

            Shion raised his hand. Wiped at his eyes. He was not sobbing, but tears slipped out as if by accident, almost uncertain.

            Nezumi took Shion’s hand in his before Shion could lower it again. “Are you hurt?” he asked again, leaning closer.

            Shion shook his head, then stopped. “Maybe. My left leg. It can still bear my weight.”

            Nezumi nodded. Shion didn’t need immediate medical attention. They could leave that matter for later. “Look at me,” Nezumi said, because he couldn’t tell Shion to listen. They were reading each other’s lips. In the background, Shion’s name was being chanted.

            He was loved, and Nezumi understood this more than anything.

            “You were beautiful.”

            More tears fell. Bigger, faster. Shion’s lips opened, and Nezumi watched him inhale through them, a thick breath.

            “I wouldn’t lie to you. I couldn’t look away. I am so proud of you, Shion. Do you understand?”

            “I’m sorry,” Shion said, reaching up with his free hand, wiping at his face again.

            “Don’t say that.”

            “I shouldn’t have tried to – ”

            “Shion.”

            “I thought I could do it – ”

            “Shion!” Nezumi said, and his shout was echoed by a thousand more, more than that, more than that. “Don’t regret it. You were incredible. Don’t regret that.”

            Shion slipped his hand free from Nezumi’s, pressed the bases of his palms to his eyes. Nezumi leaned forward, wrapped his arms around Shion and ignored the wall between them.

            He felt Shion’s hair against his cheek.

            “I could have watched you forever,” Nezumi said quietly, his lips against Shion’s ear.

             If anything, the chant of Shion’s name grew. Nezumi held him tightly. Felt Shion relax in his arms. Felt Shion’s breaths on his neck. Felt when Shion whispered, the Morse code of his words – no sound at all, but the heat of breath and syllables enough for Nezumi to hear – “Tell me, Nezumi – Did I take your breath away?”

            Nezumi pressed his smile into the shell of Shion’s ear. “Yes. That was rather rude of you. I’ll take it back any time now.”

            He felt when Shion laughed, the small shake of it. He let go of Shion so he could see it, and there was a wisp of it there when Shion pulled away from him, a lingering smile on his lips.

            His eyes were wet, and his face was wet, but he was no longer crying.

            _I’ve never heard anything like it! I’m fighting to make myself heard over this crowd, it seems that everyone is shouting Shion’s name at the top of their lungs in an overwhelming and heartwarming show of support like there’s never been at a Grand Prix Event. The cheers have gone on so long there is a delay, the next skater should be coming out any time now, but it seems as if the events have taken a pause to allow for this immense applause. It is clear that Shion’s fall out of what would have been a quad axel has not dissuaded the love for him in this arena. We saw a beautiful program tonight, and the audience is not letting anyone forget that. Their support for Shion, who has never fallen on competition ice and is clearly a shaken from it, is moving, and I’m close to shedding a bit of tears of my own._

The crowd finally quieted by the time Shion got to the kiss-and-cry, Nezumi sitting on one side of him and Safu on his other. Karan stood behind Shion, and when Nezumi looked at him, it was to see Karan’s hand on his shoulder.

            Shion was answering questions in an interview that Nezumi was having a hard time paying attention to. His eyes were on the screen that would announce Shion’s score.

            Nezumi didn’t need Shion to win a gold medal. He didn’t need Shion to win anything. But he needed Shion to understand that his free skate had been incredible, and he needed Shion to know that he had nothing to regret.

            Nezumi hadn’t wanted Shion to have a quad axel as the final jump of his program, but he was more than proud of Shion for trying it. The figure skater was stubborn to a fault, and Nezumi didn’t want that to change because of his own involvement with the man.

            Nezumi glanced at Shion, relieved that Shion was no longer talking to the man who’d been interviewing him.

            “How long will it take for your scores to be up?” Nezumi asked, and Shion stopped talking to Safu to glance at him.

            “What was that?”

            “Guys, look, they’re coming up now,” Safu said, pointing at the screen.

            Nezumi slipped his fingers through Shion’s as they turned to the screen, and then the score was shown, and Nezumi still hadn’t gotten down the FSU scoring method, but he knew enough about what was good and what was bad to know what Shion’s score meant.

            There were still three skaters left to do their free skates, but Nezumi knew they couldn’t compete. Shion had won the gold.

            “You broke your previous world record!” Safu was saying.

            “I told you, honey,” Karan said, hugging her son from behind.

            Nezumi squeezed Shion’s hand. “Congratulations.”

            Shion did not squeeze back. Was staring at his score, and Nezumi couldn’t read anything from his profile.

            Added to his previous Grand Prix scores, Shion was completely out of the league of any other competitor. The only possible contender to unseat him was the Canadian skater, Graeme, who was about to do his free skate. He’d have to score at least thirty points above Shion’s free skate, and Nezumi wasn’t even sure that was possible.

            “Shion,” Nezumi said, because Shion was still staring at the screen.

            Shion looked at him. “I’m okay,” he said.

            “You won. No matter how the rest of them skate, you won.”

            “I don’t skate for medals, Nezumi, even in competition.”

            Nezumi had the question on his lips – _Then why do you skate?_ – but an interviewer was asking Shion if he could answer more questions. Karan stepped up, politely declined on Shion’s account, and then she was ushering them all out of the kiss-and-cry.

            “Thanks, Mom,” Shion said to Karan, as they walked to the stands to watch the rest of the skaters. He was limping slightly.

            “Sure, hon,” Karan said.

            Nezumi still held Shion’s hand.

            They sat in the stands, and Shion freed his hand from Nezumi’s to rub over his arms, so Nezumi took off his jacket, not bothering to ask, and slung it over Shion’s shoulders. Shion clutched at it, pulled it closer around him, leaned against Nezumi’s side.

            They watched Graeme skate a perfect program, but it was nothing like watching Shion. Nezumi felt no pull towards the ice. He felt nothing drawing him to the rink, preventing him from looking away.

            Nezumi, in fact, did look away from Graeme several times. He turned to the man beside him, examined Shion’s profile, watched Shion watch the other skater.

            Even off the ice, Nezumi did not know how to look away.

*

Shion watched Graeme’s and Jin’s programs before allowing himself to be taped up during the last skater’s free skate – a skater from Italy, debuting for his first year at the Grand Prix in the senior division.

            Shion’s left leg was sprained, and the medics taped it before telling him it’d be best to get it checked out at a hospital after the event for an x-ray, but that it would most likely heal quickly.

            He had been listening to the medic and not paying attention to the scores of the Italian skater, so it was Safu who told him, grabbing his wrist and attention from the medic.

            “You won, Shion, you won your sixth Grand Prix gold!”

            Shion looked up at the big screen. Saw the scores lined up. He’d won gold, Graeme had won silver, and the skater from Russia had won bronze. As he looked at the screen, it changed so that his own face was revealed, a camera that must have been on him at that second, and Shion blinked at himself, then smiled for the audience, and they cheered.

            He waved, and then the camera switched to a live shot of Graeme.

            The events following were not much different than at any previous Grand Prix Final in which Shion had competed. Shion gave a few more interviews, and then it was time to receive his medal. He’d skated out to the podium when Graeme complimented his jacket, and Shion skated quickly back to the edge of the rink to return it to Nezumi, who took it with a light smirk.

            Shion returned to the podium. Accepted his bouquet and climbed up to the middle tier with the help of Graeme.

            “Congrats, but I was sure I had your ass this time,” Graeme said, before his smile slid off, and he looked at Shion more seriously. “You okay?”

            “It’s just a sprain,” Shion replied.

            “I wasn’t talking about that. It was your first fall on competition ice. That’s hard, I know. You all right?”

            Shion just nodded.

            The rink was darkened, spotlights in Shion’s eyes when they gave out the medals. Shion ducked his head, allowed the gold medal to be placed around his neck. When he looked up, he searched for Nezumi, but could see nothing at all of the crowd because of the lights in his eyes.

            Shion had received a Grand Prix gold medal five times before. Each time, he’d felt pride and pure happiness, but now, when he closed his eyes for a brief break from the sharp spotlights, all he could see was his fall.

            He wondered if he was selfish, a trait he’d never thought to use to describe himself, but maybe it was true. A gold medal should have been enough. He didn’t know why he couldn’t get it out of his head. He didn’t know why his chest felt constricted, had felt that way since he’d hit the ice so hard all his breath flew from his lungs.

            When he opened his eyes again, a few spotlights had been turned away so that he could see more clearly, and as he blinked he made out a few people in the audience. He saw Nezumi immediately, dark hair in a long ponytail over his shoulder, eyes steady on his.

            Nezumi smiled, a small smile, barely there, light and gentle as a breeze. Shion waited to feel the warmth of it on his face. His uncertainty did not fall away completely, but it felt easier to breathe, to remember to smile at the interviewers asking to question him.

            “Shion, how do you feel after receiving your sixth consecutive Grand Prix gold medal?”

            Shion looked away from Nezumi’s small smile to the woman who questioned him, her microphone extended.

            “I feel happy,” Shion told her, “and so grateful to the people in my life who believed in me and supported the risks I decided to take.”

            “Are you referring to your final quad axel?”

            Shion nodded. “Yes. A part of me regrets it, but someone very smart has always told me that to regret the past is to waste time in the present. I’m trying not to regret it, and to just allow myself the happiness of this moment, of winning this medal, but more than that, getting to share this experience with all of my fans and friends and family.”

            “Thank you, Shion, we’ll let you get back to your family now,” the woman said, and Shion thanked her, skated to the edge of the rink where Nezumi still stood.

            “How’s your ankle?” Nezumi asked, reaching out, wrapping a hand around Shion’s medal, lifting it a few inches off Shion’s chest to look more closely at it.

            “It doesn’t hurt. Can you tell me something honestly, Nezumi?” Shion asked, and Nezumi looked up from the medal.

            His silver eyes were bright from the spotlights skirting around the rink, and he nodded.

            “What did you feel when I fell today?”

            Nezumi had clipped his bangs off of his eyes so that they looked wider than usual. “Like it was me on the ice, falling the way I did during our first lessons. I felt helpless.”

            Shion felt his exhale escape him too quickly. He looked down from Nezumi. “Oh.”

            Nezumi’s fingers beneath Shion’s chin lifted his head again. “Shion. Every time I fell on the ice, I knew you would be there to offer your hand to me.”

            Shion examined Nezumi’s expression. “You never took my help.”

             “I still knew it would be offered.” Nezumi was touching Shion’s medal again, his thumb sliding over the front of it. “What happens next?”

            “What do you mean?”

            “Is there another ceremony? More interviews?”

            Shion shook his head. “I don’t have to do any more tonight. I just want you take me back to our hotel room, away from all of these people.”

            “And then what?” Nezumi asked, pulling on the medal slightly so that Shion was forced to lean forward.

            Shion managed a small smile. “And then whatever you want.”

            It took several minutes to get away from the crowd, but eventually they were standing outside the arena a few feet from Safu and Karan, waiting for the taxi to their hotel. Shion felt Nezumi touch the back of his hand.

            “What are you thinking?” Nezumi asked quietly, when Shion looked at him.

            “I know I have no reason to be disappointed in myself.”

            “But you are.”

            “I shouldn’t be.”

            “I’ve always thought you were a bit of an idiot,” Nezumi said lightly, but he strung his fingers through Shion’s.

            The taxi came, and Safu, Nezumi, Shion, and his mother piled in. Safu had suggested they go out for drinks to celebrate, but Shion had insisted he was too tired, and there was the celebratory banquet the next night anyway.

            Shion sat by the window of the taxi and tilted his head up to look out. No stars were visible in the night sky, but Nezumi’s fingers still laced through his made Shion forget for a moment that anything was missing.

*


	14. Chapter 14

Nezumi woke to an empty bed, but this was not uncommon.

            Whether he slept at Shion’s apartment or Shion came to Tokyo and slept at his, Nezumi usually woke alone. Depending on the hour, he would return to sleep, or get up.

            The clock on Shion’s nightstand said it was just past one in the morning. Nezumi got up.

            He pulled on layers, knowing the late December air in Shion’s hometown was frigid and unforgiving. It had snowed the night before, and Nezumi stumbled as he stuffed his feet into boots, then was grabbing his keys, heading out the door, and locking it behind him.

            The walk to the rink was, at least, mercifully quick when Nezumi was at Shion’s apartment. In Tokyo, Nezumi’s apartment was at least a twenty-minute walk from the closest rink. When the snowstorms began, Nezumi downloaded Uber.

            The rink was open, and Nezumi let himself in, feeling no relief from the nighttime chill as he entered the building. He heard the scrape of Shion’s skates on the ice and the familiar music of Shion’s free skate program. He got to the edge of the rink and stood, watched Shion, knew after only a few seconds of watching that Shion was only a minute into his program.

            Nezumi usually watched. Allowed Shion to skate his program at least twice if he didn’t look too exhausted before coaxing him back off the ice, back to whoever’s apartment they were currently sleeping at.

            They didn’t switch off apartments nightly. It depended largely on Nezumi’s production schedule. If he was in a show that ran late, Shion spent the night in Tokyo. If not, they were at Shion’s. Nezumi had started frequenting Karan’s bakery, and in the previous week, she’d invited him into the kitchen. He liked to knead the dough with his knuckles and the palms of his hands best.

            Tonight was Christmas Eve. Two weeks since the Grand Prix Final. Two weeks of waking up in an empty bed. Two weeks of letting Shion finish his routine before asking that he rest, but Nezumi didn’t want to let Shion finish his routine tonight.

            They’d gone to see Safu at the clinic again the day before. Again, Safu instructed Shion that his minor sprain was in danger of becoming something worse. He needed to stop exerting the leg until it was healed, and Shion had nodded, insisted he understood, promised he would take it easy.

            Nezumi left the edge of the ice. Went to the dressing room, found his own locker, pulled out his own skates, brought them back to the edge of the ice and sat on the bench to exchange his boots for them.

            He was on the ice at Shion’s second-to-last jump. He knew Shion’s path, knew every step Shion would take, and skated to the spot where he knew Shion would meet him.

            Shion was about to start a step-sequence, but could not, with Nezumi in his way. He stopped abruptly, a skid of ice.

            “You scared me,” he breathed, his eyes wide, his cheeks pink.

            “You can’t keep doing this.”

            “I’m not,” Shion said plainly, as if they weren’t both standing on the ice in their skates, as if they were still in bed, as if Nezumi was the one going crazy.

            “It’s the middle of the night.”

            “Then go to bed.”

            Nezumi shook his head, turned away from Shion. “Shit, Shion.”

            “I don’t ask you to come out here. You don’t have to.”

            “How long are you going to do this? How many times do you need to land that goddamn quad axel perfectly for you to forgive yourself?”

            “I just like to skate, that’s all – ”

            “Don’t give me that shit, you can skate any time of the day.” Nezumi looked back at Shion. Tried to understand him. “I’ve seen you land that quad countless times since the Final. You know you can do it. What else do you want? What are you looking for out here, Shion?”

            “I’m not looking for anything.”

            “Then why the hell are we here?” Nezumi shouted, and his voice rang out through the rink, seemed amplified because of the late hour.

            Shion’s exhale was a cloud of fog. His shoulders dropped. He tapped a skate lightly against the ice. “If I sleep, I’ll just dream of it. At least, if I’m here, I know I stand a chance of landing it.”

            “This is a stupid thing to have nightmares about,” Nezumi snapped, before he could stop himself, and Shion’s flinch was in the skin of his cheek.

            He looked down at the ice. “I didn’t – I didn’t mean to imply it was. I’m sorry. Nezumi. He looked up again, his eyes wide and earnest. “You don’t have to keep coming out here. You don’t have to keep finding me and bringing me back home.”

            “Actually, I do,” Nezumi said, his voice still hard, but he wanted to soften it.

            “Why?” Shion asked. He sounded helpless.

            In the day, Shion was happy. He reminded Nezumi of this constantly, how happy he was that Nezumi was by his side, how happy he was that they were living together, though it was in two apartments rather than one. Even so, other than when Nezumi was at work, he was always with Shion or on his way to be with Shion. Other than the nights, of course, when Shion left him, drawn to the rink, away from their bed.

            “I’m not using your apartment as a hotel. You’re either going to be there, or I’m not sleeping there any longer. Do you understand?” Nezumi asked, and Shion reached his hand into his hair, briefly grasped the white locks, let them go.

            “I can’t help it. Nezumi, I can’t help coming here. I’ll stop, I will.”

            “When?”

            “I don’t know yet. This is what I need now. I don’t expect you to understand, I don’t understand myself.”

            “You’re hurting yourself. You heard Safu, you’re going to give yourself a fracture at this rate.”

            “It’s just temporary. This is just temporary, that I need to do this. Go home, Nezumi, and I’ll be back soon. I hate that I keep you awake at nights. Please go home,” Shion insisted.

            Nezumi narrowed his eyes. It was only a home because it was Shion’s, but Shion wasn’t even in it, and Nezumi had no desire to return to an empty bed.

            He’d thought he’d never have to sleep alone again. He’d thought that was what this meant, what Shion meant, what being together meant.

            Nezumi said none of this. He turned and skated off the ice, changed out of his skates, and headed out without Shion beside him. Before he got to the edge of the rink, he heard the skid of Shion’s skates starting up again on the ice, the song from his free skate still playing on a loop.

*

They were walking back from Safu’s clinic, where they’d met her for lunch, when Shion turned to Nezumi.

            “Hey.”

            Nezumi didn’t look at him. He was opening a fortune cookie, pulling out the paper within it as he replied, “Hey.”

            “Remember that you agreed to do anything I wished?”

            Nezumi held out half his fortune cookie, and Shion took it even thought he’d already eaten his own.

            Shion’s fortune had read – _Everyone agrees that you are the best_ – which Safu had smiled at and Nezumi had rolled his eyes at.

            “I remember,” Nezumi confirmed, rubbing his fortune flat between his thumbs and forefingers.

            “Is that still true?”

            “This is stupid,” Nezumi said, balling his fortune in his hand.

            “Don’t do that, let me read it,” Shion argued, reaching over to pry it from Nezumi’s hand.

            _Don’t worry about money. The best things in life are free._

            Shion laughed, pocketing the fortune to keep. “Well, is it still true?”

            “Are you serious? Everything in life can be bought. I know you’re sentimental, but you can’t honestly believe that without money you could be – ”

            “No. I mean, is it still true that you’ll grant my any wish,” Shion interrupted, before Nezumi got himself worked up.

            It was the third day of January. Almost a year since Shion had known Nezumi. It amazed him, that only a year could contain the life he’d lived since he’d known the man beside him.

            “I suppose,” Nezumi said slowly.

            “I know what I want.”

            Nezumi said nothing, but he looked at Shion now. They were returning to the bakery. Nezumi liked baking with Karan, and Shion liked watching Nezumi bake. He liked especially when Nezumi smeared pie mix onto his cheek so that he could taste the sweet of it later when he kissed Nezumi’s jawline.

            “Even though you said you’d agree to anything, obviously, you don’t have to. You can have time to think about it. I want you to think about it. Don’t just say no immediately,” Shion warned, while Nezumi’s eyes narrowed.

            “This isn’t a promising preamble.”

            “Remember, you can’t just say no off the bat, you have to think about it.”

            “Yeah, yeah, what is it?” Nezumi asked, and Shion smiled at his suspicion.

            It had been a while, since he’d seen Nezumi guarded against him, suspicious of him, wary to be around him.

            A year had changed him, had changed Shion too. Shion loved the man Nezumi was now, but he couldn’t help his own warmth at the familiarity of Nezumi’s distrust.

            It only reminded him of the difference a year could make, of the beauty that could grow in such a short span of time, in what still felt like a lifetime.

*

“I know it’s asking you a lot to be reasonable, but if you could attempt it every once in a while, it’d be very much appreciated,” Nezumi said.

            He had let Shion push the cart in the grocery store, as it kept Shion’s hands busy, and he was less likely to reach up into the aisle and grab at unnecessary items. The figure skater was a sucker for sales.

            “I told you to think about it,” Shion groaned.

            “I did think about it, and that is my conclusion.”

            “I was thinking about it, and I have an idea. Ready? You could get an aster, and I could get a cactus,” Shion said, his grin wide.

            Nezumi reached around Shion to grab a bag of rice. “That doesn’t make sense.”

            “Yes, it does. My name is – ”

            “In your scenario, I’m represented by a cactus, right?” Nezumi countered, after he’d thrown the rice into the cart and pulled the side of it to make Shion walk again.

            Nezumi tried to grocery shop on his own, especially in Tokyo, where the aisles were constantly bustling. Shion was too easily distracted and even worse, recognized, which made the entire outing much longer and more painful than necessary.

            When Nezumi had come home from his rehearsal, however, it was to find that he was out of rice, and as Shion had just arrived in Tokyo, it was unavoidable to get him to stay at Nezumi’s apartment while he went shopping alone.

            “Well, yes.”

            “What’s with your insistence that I’m like a cactus?” Nezumi muttered.

            “If you don’t like that idea, I’m open to suggestions. I could do a rat, I suppose, but I don’t really like the idea of tattooing a rat on my body. A cute rat, maybe. Or a mouse, that could work, I like mice.”

            “Or we don’t get tattoos at all,” Nezumi replied.

            “I’m not going to make you get a tattoo.”

            “Then the matter’s settled. What kind of cereal did you say you’ve been wanting to try? This one? It’s full of sugar, Shion, there’s twenty-one grams per serving, pick a different one.”

            “But you have to consider it. I don’t think you’ve been considering.”

            “I’ve been considering,” Nezumi said, replacing the sugary cereal Shion had exclaimed at when they’d seen a commercial for it in between watching a documentary on meerkats Shion had been fascinated in. Nezumi grabbed a box of Corn Flakes instead.

            “I hate Corn Flakes.”

            “Then stop babbling and pick your own cereal,” Nezumi sighed, putting back the Corn Flakes, which he didn’t altogether enjoy either. They got soggy too quickly.

            “I like the idea of you with a tattoo. Don’t you think they’re sexy?”

            “I can’t have visible tattoos in my productions,” Nezumi replied, not mentioning that a few of his cast mates did have tattoos and simply used cover-up during shows.

            “We can get them in places that wouldn’t be visible.”

            “I’m not tattooing a flower to my ass.”          

            “I never asked you to do that,” Shion replied, picking a box of cereal from the shelf that looked just as sugary, if not more, than the one Nezumi had already advised him not to get. “Is it that you don’t like tattoos?” Shion asked, examining the puzzle on the back of the cereal box.

            Nezumi took the box from him, peered at the Nutrition Facts. “I wouldn’t say that.”

            “What would you say?”

            Nezumi sighed, put the cereal in the cart, looked at Shion. “I don’t know, I haven’t thought about it.”

            Shion threw up his hands. “That’s what I’ve been saying! If you just take time to consider it, then I’ll take your opinions much more seriously.”

            “Fine, I’ll consider it.”

            “Okay, you’ll consider it.”

            “But if we do it, it’s not going to be an aster and a cactus.”

            “Whatever you say, Nezumi,” Shion sighed, shaking his head and wheeling the cart out of the aisle.

            Nezumi followed him, watching as Shion struggled to weave through the other shoppers before stepping in and nudging Shion gently aside to push the cart himself, knowing if he let Shion lead, they could be in an aisle for an hour while Shion made conversation with everyone who recognized him and pointed at the Frosted Flakes cereal box where his face was plastered – Japan’s pride and joy.

*

Shion sat up in careful movements. As he was lifting Nezumi’s arm from over his waist, the man moved, then woke in a flash of grey eyes.

            “Go back to sleep,” Shion whispered.

            Nezumi watched him silently, then sat up as well. “You go back to sleep.”

            “Nezumi – ”

            “I’m serious. Go to sleep,” Nezumi said.

            It was the second week of January. Just past a month since the Grand Prix Final. Just past a year since Shion first saw Nezumi on stage at the New National Theatre, and then two days later in his mother’s bakery.

            “I have to – ”

            “Safu’s going to be pissed if you keep jumping on your sprain. I’m already pissed. Just shut up, Shion, and lie back down.”

            They were in Nezumi’s apartment, which Shion found fascinating. It was decorated in an incredibly sleek and modern way, which Shion had discovered was not at all Nezumi’s taste – the apartment was pre-furnished. It was immaculately clean as well, but for one side of Nezumi’s room, which was covered in teetering stacks of books.

            There were no plants but for the cactus on the window ledge in his living area.

            “You don’t understand,” Shion insisted, and Nezumi pushed his bangs from his eyes.

            “Sure I do. You have nightmares of falling. You go to the rink to prove to yourself you don’t have to fall. Let me tell you something, Shion. Nightmares don’t go away. Do you plan on doing this for the rest of your life? Who gives shit that you fell? You were incredible, it was your best program yet. I’ve never fallen on stage, I don’t know what you felt, but whatever it is, you need to come to terms with it and let it go.”

            Shion’s hands were in fists. He tried to loosen them. “I don’t need your sympathy, Nezumi – ”

            “Good, you don’t have it – ”

            “I don’t even care about the fall, I just like to skate, that’s all, I don’t see why you have a problem with it – ”

            “I don’t have a problem with you skating, I have a problem when it’s in the middle of the night, and I’ve got nightmares too, and they’re a little shittier than yours, so I’d appreciate it if you were here when I woke up,” Nezumi snapped, then abruptly stood up, left the room, slammed his door behind him.

            Shion stared at the closed door. Shock washed over him, cool and then burning. He hadn’t even known Nezumi was aware of his nightmares. The man no longer shouted so much in his sleep. He didn’t say anything Shion could understand anymore, hadn’t since Shion began sleeping beside him again in Marseille. All that was left were low murmurings Shion couldn’t make out, and he’d hoped it meant Nezumi’s nightmares had stopped, but he realized now what a foolish thing that was to hope.

            The nightmares had been plaguing Nezumi for nineteen years. They weren’t going to stop so easily.

            Shion stood up shakily, took a breath to steady himself, walked around the bed and to the door Nezumi had slammed. He opened it, ventured out into the living room, went next to the kitchen where the fridge was open and Nezumi behind it, staring in with the fridge’s glow luminescent over his pale skin.

            “There’s leftover curry,” Shion said quietly, walking to Nezumi’s side.

            Nezumi closed the fridge. He went to the pantry, which had been poorly stocked the first time Shion examined it, but now had a much wider array of options.

            Nezumi picked out a box of saltines, placed it on the counter, then sat on a stool, extracted a sleeve of crackers, and pulled off the rubber band.

            “Want butter or jam?” Shion asked, grabbing two napkins.

            “I’m fine.”

            Shion sat at the counter on a stool beside Nezumi. Nezumi put a handful of crackers on Shion’s napkin, then another handful on his own. They sat and ate in silence but for the sound of crunching.

            “I always assumed you forgot about your nightmares when you woke,” Shion said, when he had only one cracker left.

            He broke it in half, nibbled on a side of one and peeked at Nezumi, who still had three crackers on his napkin.

            “I’ve been remembering them recently.”

            “How recently?”

            Nezumi broke a cracker in half, then again, then again. “A few months.”

            “Has that happened before?”

            “No.”

            “Why do you think it started?”

            “Shion, I don’t want to talk about this.”

            “I didn’t know you needed me at night. If I’d known, Nezumi, of course I would have – ”

            “What?” Nezumi interrupted, looking at Shion suddenly. His voice was even, quiet. “What would you have done?”

            Shion leaned forward. “I’d never have left you. I’m here for you too, Nezumi. It’s not just you supporting me, that’s not how this works.”

            Nezumi rubbed his hand over his forehead. Pushed his hair up from his face and kept his fingers woven through the dark strands.

            Nezumi’s hair was incredibly long now. Nearly reached his elbows. Shion had spent hours weaving small braids through it one afternoon while they’d watched a Christmas movie marathon. Fallen strands clogged the drain daily in both Shion’s apartment and Nezumi’s. Shion loved to string his fingers through it during sex, but more often than not, he’d get it tangled, knotted. It caught on his lips and neck and body while Nezumi twisted and turned at night. It took hours to dry after Nezumi showered. Shion loved when it was loose and when Nezumi braided it down his back and when Nezumi pulled it up off his face in high, tottering buns.

            “Yeah, okay,” Nezumi said quietly. His eyelashes were long, long, long. Seemed longer each time Shion looked at them, and he wondered if eyelashes could grow.

            Nezumi’s fingers still in his hair were long. His legs, bent at the knees, were long. His arms, one elbow against the counter beside his napkin of crumbled crackers, were long. Everything about him seemed stretched out, and Shion wanted to get tangled in him, his long limbs and hair, his long fingers and eyelashes, Shion wanted to get caught, to get knotted, so that Nezumi would have to carefully extract him, comb through himself to find Shion at the center of him, snagged in the web of his long, thin, sea-green veins, trapped.

            Shion slid off his stool. Stood in front of Nezumi. Touched a few strands of his long hair that Shion hated and loved. He could touch Nezumi’s hair for hours. He could comb his fingers through it for days.

            “I know since the Final, it’s been strange. Getting used to each other again. Becoming a real part of each other’s lives, knowing we’re not temporary, trying to figure everything out with each other. But I need you to know how happy I am now. With you. I wouldn’t want anything to be different. I don’t regret anything that I’ve ever done, because all of it, every single moment of my life, has led to this one here, with you. I love being with you, Nezumi. I know I get on your nerves, and you infuriate me too, but this is what I want. It’s what you want too, right?”

            Nezumi’s fingers fell from his hair. He pivoted on his stool and looked at Shion fully, and then he nodded. “Yes.”

            “You don’t ever – You don’t ever get tired of me?” Shion asked, his voice small, not knowing he’d had this worry until it escaped his lips.

            Nezumi tilted his head. His eyes slipped carefully between Shion’s. Shion loved to be looked at by this man.

            “Of course I do,” Nezumi said slowly. “Quite often, I can’t stand you. I don’t know how a person like you could exist. There are many occasions when I want nothing more than to be away from you.”

            Shion breathed deeply. Nezumi spoke calmly, in such a way that Shion felt nothing but calm as well, didn’t mind what Nezumi said, felt that it was the same for him towards Nezumi as well.

            Nezumi reached out, caught the fabric of Shion’s t-shirt above his stomach and tugged so that Shion stepped forward. “That doesn’t mean I will ever enjoy waking up without you, or desire to do so again. You should know, Shion, that I’ve forgotten how to live without you, and I don’t care to relearn it. Do you understand?”

            Shion stepped between Nezumi’s knees. Nodded and wound his arms around Nezumi’s waist. Pulled himself closer to Nezumi, hugged him, rested his chin on Nezumi’s shoulder, felt Nezumi’s hair tickle his cheek, and Shion turned his head so the long strands touched his lips.

            “I understand,” Shion said, into the dark locks.

            “I am happy too,” Nezumi said over Shion’s shoulder. “Do you know that?”

            “I know that,” Shion confirmed, a whisper.

            Shion didn’t want to move from Nezumi’s arms, but he knew when they returned to bed, the long arms would return around him again. Only that allowed Shion to pull back from Nezumi, to clean up their crumbs and napkins and return to Nezumi’s bedroom where Shion had two drawers of clothes and a collection of his own books amongst Nezumi’s teetering piles.

            In bed, Shion asked Nezumi in a whisper if he felt sleepy. When Nezumi confirmed he did not, they undressed slowly, fucked even more so, let it take up hours of their night as if they did not know darkness was made for sleeping, as if they had never learned the consequences of exhaustion, as if to touch and kiss and bite and love was all their time had been made for, and all they knew to do.

*

Shion had a peculiar obsession with research, and spent hours looking up proper post-tattoo care as well as the most reputable tattoo artists in Tokyo. Nezumi, for the most part, tuned him out. He still hadn’t said yes. He’d simply suggested a better idea than a cactus and an aster, and Shion had let it go to his head.

            Nezumi had to admit, however, after getting the actual tattoo, that it was useful to have a self-made expert like Shion around. Shion had already bought the tubs of Aquaphor and placed one each in the bathroom of his own apartment and that of Nezumi’s. He instructed Nezumi on proper washing with unscented soap, and they did so the first time together, standing side-by-side in front of the mirror in Nezumi’s bathroom, their arms extended.

            Shion had even ordered Nezumi cover-up after comparing several brands online after Nezumi admitted to Shion that ballet dancers often did have tattoos in visible places, so long as they had the right products.

            Nezumi’s tube was labeled _Body Cover, Pale._ They’d rubbed it in patches over Nezumi’s arm before they even got their tattoos, and Nezumi was impressed by the match. Shion had undressed, and they’d rubbed it over his entire scar, Nezumi taking the bottom half of Shion’s body and Shion the top. The shade was a little too light for his skin tone, but when Nezumi walked several feet away from him and squinted, it looked as if Shion had no scar at all. Nezumi had ordered Shion to wash it off immediately, and Shion had laughed, said, _Make me,_ so Nezumi had picked up him and taken him to the shower, turned it on while they were both standing inside of it, Nezumi still fully clothed and Shion squirming in his arms, laughing so hard Nezumi was certain he would drop the man.

            It was March, and the weather was too cold to go out without sweaters or jackets, so their tattoos stayed hidden outdoors. Safu had gone to the tattoo parlor with Shion and Nezumi three weeks before, but Shion had admitted to Nezumi that he still hadn’t told his mother.

            It was Nezumi’s, that Karan saw first, when he took off his sweater in the heat of the bakery. He was rolling dough for a pie crust when Karan’s hand wrapped around his wrist, twisted his arm gently.

            “Is that – ” she asked, and then she laughed a soft laugh, covered her mouth with one palm, but Nezumi could see the crinkles around her eyes.

            He looked down at his tattoo as well. It was on the inside of his left forearm, just underneath the crease of his elbow. Shion’s was in the same place.

            “Does Shion have one?” Karan asked, letting go of Nezumi’s wrist.

            His face was hot. He didn’t look at her as he sprinkled flour over the pie crust before continuing to roll it out.

            “Yes. His is different, though.”

            “I can guess what his is. It’s very nice, Nezumi.”

            Nezumi chose not to reply. He was forced to stop rolling the dough before it got too thin, and looked around for something else to do, aware that Karan was still looking at the inside of his arm and working hard not to pull it to his side, hide it from her.

            That afternoon on the train back to Tokyo, where they would stay the night because Nezumi had an early rehearsal the next day, Nezumi told Shion.

            “Your mother saw.”

            “Saw what?” Shion was on his phone. He was researching different universities in Tokyo. He was going to do another season of ice skating, but when Nezumi asked about after that, Shion had shrugged and smiled and replied, _Who knows?_

            Nezumi didn’t say anything, and Shion looked up from his phone abruptly.

            “Your – ?” he pointed at Nezumi’s arm, covered by his sweater and jacket.

            “She laughed.”

            Shion smiled. “I didn’t think she’d mind. Did you tell her what mine was?”

            “No, but I think she knows anyway. It’s not hard to guess.”

            “I hate that it’s so cold. Sometimes I just roll up my sleeves and look at it,” Shion said, and Nezumi did not to admit that he often did the same.

            “We can stay in the city a few days, if you want. Tour universities,” Nezumi said, taking Shion’s phone and scrolling through the website he was on.

            “I was thinking. We could stay for more than a few days,” Shion said slowly.

            Nezumi glanced at him. “What does that mean?”

            “My lease is up at the end of March.”

            “You didn’t mention that.”

            “I’m mentioning it now.”

            “Two weeks before your lease ends.”

            “It’s a suggestion,” Shion said, and Nezumi handed him back his phone.

            “You don’t have to ask,” Nezumi said, sitting up to reach around his back, gather his hair to his side and braid it. It was too long, getting cumbersome. He’d told Shion he was considering cutting it, and the guy had nearly had a conniption, but Nezumi was getting tired of having to buy new bottles of shampoo and conditioner every two weeks.

            “It’s convenient having a place in my town though, because we’ll still go often, visit my mom and Safu all the time since the commute isn’t bad at all.”

            “Then keep your place,” Nezumi said. “It’s up to you.”

            “I want to live together.”

            “We are living together.”

            “But I want all our stuff in one place.”

            “Then we can move all your stuff to my place but a mattress, where we can sleep when we visit your mom and Safu.”

            “And I don’t want there to be your place and my place. I want just one place that we call our place.”

            “We can call my place our place,” Nezumi said, dropping his braid when it wasn’t even halfway done, letting Shion finish it because his fingers cramped after a while. “It’s too long, I’m cutting it.”

            “Don’t start that again. Really, it doesn’t make sense to move out of my place until I’m done this season, I’ll have to be there when I start training for the next Grand Prix.”

            “Then renew your lease, and we can talk about this next year.”

            “I guess I can stay with my mother when I train,” Shion mused. “I still have my room above the bakery where I grew up. And we could just stay there when we sleep over.”

            “Shion, it’s hard to know what you want when you go on like this,” Nezumi sighed, and Shion held his hand out for Nezumi’s hair band, which Nezumi offered for Shion to tie the end of his braid.

            “We’ll need a car to move all my stuff. Safu has one,” Shion said.

            “So you aren’t renewing the lease?”

            “I think I want to officially move in with you.”

            “It’s been official.”

            “Not official enough. Your place is kind of small, though, for a long-term thing. And I’ll always think of it as your place even if we try to call it our place.”

            “Let’s look at other apartments then,” Nezumi said, shrugging. “This guy at work said a place in his building was opening up, a two bedroom, not that we’d need two bedrooms.”

            “My mom and Safu will visit.”

            “Okay, we’ll look at two bedrooms. That’s what you want? A place in Tokyo? It’s much more expensive than your town. And I like your town.”

            “We’ll still see my town all the time. I like Tokyo, and we have the money, especially once I stop paying a separate lease, and you work there year-round, and if I’m going to university there in a year or two, it just makes more sense.”

            Nezumi nodded. “I’ll text the guy from work.”

            Shion’s smile was bright. “I’m so excited,” he said, and Nezumi stopped himself from rolling his eyes.

            They’d been living together for months, just at two places instead of one, but Nezumi did like the idea of a place they called _our place_ even though he knew that was stupid, and decided it was just Shion’s idiocy rubbing off on him.

            Shion leaned against his arm, his cheek on Nezumi’s shoulder, closed his eyes even though they only had ten minutes left at most until they got into the Tokyo station.

            Even so, Nezumi turned his head, rested his chin in the soft of Shion’s hair. He looked out the window as the train sped by, but he wasn’t paying attention to the buildings they passed, his mind elsewhere entirely.

            _Every time we make this ride, I feel like I’m seeing different buildings pass by even though the train goes the same way. Isn’t that strange?_

_What was that?_

_This is the fourth time I’ve said something to you and you haven’t heard me, do you realize that? You’ve been in your head the entire ride, what are you thinking about?_

_Nothing. I had an idea._

_What idea?_

_Don’t look at me like that, you haven’t even heard what it is yet._

_I’m not looking at you like anything._

_All wide-eyed and excited._

_It’s for our tattoos, isn’t it?_

_You’re still looking at me like that. Stop being excited, I’m not saying yes, I’m saying I have an idea that’s better than all your stupid ideas have been._

_What is it?_

_Before I tell you, tell me you know this doesn’t mean I’m agreeing._

_I know you’re not agreeing. You’re very on the fence. You’re not even on the fence yet, you’re still climbing the fence, you’re basically still on the side of the fence that is fully against getting matching tattoos._

_Are you done babbling?_

_Nezumi, I love you more than anything in this world, but you’re being maddening right now. Just tell me._

_More than anything in this world? Even skating?_

_You’re changing the topic on purpose._

_You brought it up._

_Of course, more than skating. You love me more than anything too, don’t pretend to be surprised._

_I never said that._

_You don’t have to say it for it to be true. Now tell me, tell me. What tattoos should we get?_

_Ballet shoes and ice skates._

_Nezumi._

_Why are you smiling like that? It’s creepy. Your face is going to break._

_Nezumi, that’s it. We have to get them._

_Did you not hear when I told you I haven’t agreed to anything yet?_

_It’s perfect._

_I haven’t said yes._

_Like I said, you don’t have to say it for it to be true. I’d get the ballet shoes, and you’d get the ice skates, right?_

_Obviously._

_Can we get them tomorrow at that place I found?_

_Shion._

_Are you busy?_

_I’m not busy._

_So we’re doing it? For real?_

_Seems that way._

_Really, Nezumi? Ballet shoes and ice skates?_

_Yeah, Shion. Ballet shoes and ice skates._

 

THE END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! :)


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